When will the United States be a graveyard?

I woke up one morning with a thought about the quantity of ancestors I would have if I walk back to Jesus times. Assuming I go back 30 generations there should be close to 1 billion ancestors of mine. This has to be some kind of paradox since I’m certain 1 billion human souls weren’t alive in the yonder of 0-39AD. I decided to work the opposite way and ask myself “How many human beings would it take that, if all were buried in the ground at the end of their happy life it would make the United States a complete graveyard?”. I expanded this though to wonder at what year that would occur, too.

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The progress over 10 years…

Previousness…

I had a job, a roof over my head, ability to purchase clothing and food without assistance.

I was also happily married and in the process with US Immigration to bring my then wife to the United States. After our nuptials and the failure for me to secure regular employment in Hong Kong I moved back to lay our roots. Within a month I was successful enough to return back for our first anniversary. Afterwards the separation got to us, and this 10 year reminder popped on my calendar today:

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Two of every set…

My youngest brother and I have birthdays with a difference of 18 months and 14 days. While that’s not a mathematical marvel in any way it’s been interesting in finding pairs of famous people that either share exactly or are close to our birthdays.

The birthday problem asks for the probability that, in a set of n randomly chosen people, at least two will share a birthday. The birthday paradox refers to the counterintuitive fact that only 23 people are needed for that probability to exceed 50%. This isn’t representative of anyone having my exact birthday which is 1 in 365, but also my brothers birthday which is also 1 in 365. Combining those odds (1 in 133,225) and finding a pair of people considered famous or well-known in some way makes the odds out of this world.

Except the odds seem to favor our pairing, and thus the following…

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