I googled the amount of people that lived on earth throughout its entire history, it’s roughly 108 billions. If I take 1 person and multiply by 2 for each generation of ancestors, at the 37th generation it already outnumbers that 108 billions. (it’s 137 billions). If we take 20 years for 1 generation, it’s only 740 years by the 37th generation.
How??
(I suck at math, I recounted it like 20 times, got that 137 billions at 37th, 38th and 39th generation, so forgive me if it’s not actually at 37th, but it’s still no more than 800 years back in history)
In: 1391
Maybe if you try thinking of it the other way around it would be more intuitive, like the biblical version of history where everyone is a descendant of Adam and Eve. In that extreme scenario every family tree would eventually merge back to a single set of parents rather than the billions and billions your assumption leads to. In reality this merging has happened at points all the way up everyone’s family tree.
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