IN BRIEF
Thanos, the
Zara Turvey writes: In this year’s big
Main image © Marvel Studios 2018
superhero movie, Avengers: Infinity
War, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Black
Widow and others try to stop the bad
guy, Thanos, from wiping out half of all
life in the universe. Thanos believes his
plan necessary to deal with the problem
of overpopulation, which he blames for
destroying his home planet of Titan.
But his plan seems short-sighted. Once
culled, a population will grow again.
How long would it take to fully recover?
Rob Mastrodomenico replies:
In the original Marvel comics, Thanos
is often referred to as “The Mad Titan”,
so we might expect that his plan to
commit mass random genocide is not
entirely logical. That said, he is not
alone in worrying about the dangers
of overpopulation.
Back in 1798, the demographer
Thomas Robert Malthus wrote An
Essay on the Principle of Population
(bit.ly/2ydwql6), in which he stated:
“The power of population is so superior
to the power of the earth to produce
subsistence for man, that premature
death must in some shape or other visit
the human race.”
According to an article on the
website of the Constitutional Rights
Foundation (bit.ly/2t6XI6J), Malthus
explained that, “if unchecked, people
breed ‘geometrically’ (1, 2, 4, 8, 16,
etc.) … [but] the production of food
can only increase ‘arithmetically’ (1, 2,
3, 4, 5, etc.)”. Thus, Malthus believed
12 SIGNIFICANCE August 2018
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that “if people keep reproducing in an
uncontrolled geometric manner, they
will eventually be unable to produce
enough food for themselves”.
Earth’s people have so far avoided
population (billion)
the bleak fate predicted by Malthus,
but that is not the case for the fictional
citizens of Titan. During the course of
Avengers: Infinity War (which I have
now seen three times), Thanos explains
how the planet’s population grew
to an unsustainable size, which led
to resource scarcity, conflict and the
eventual collapse of society.
Thanos wants to prevent other
planets from suffering the same fate,
and his solution is to build a magic
glove, called the “Infinity Gauntlet”,
powered by six “Infinity Stones”, which
would give him power over time, space
and reality. Then, with a click of his
fingers, he could wipe out half of all life
in the universe and prevent the scourge
of overpopulation.
Except, as our reader points out, this
is only a temporary fix. No spoilers, but
let us imagine that Thanos succeeds
in his plan. How long would it take
for the population to return to its
previous level?
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe,
many planets play host to life, but in
our universe, the only living things we
know of are here on Earth. At the time
of writing, Earth has approximately
7.6 billion citizens (bit.ly/2MhyAjY).
That number would fall to 3.8 billion
after Thanos clicks his fingers.
Malthusian Titan
number of years
FIGURE 1 Increase in In 2018, the estimated growth
Earth’s total population rate of the global population (births
in the years following
an Infinity Gauntlet
minus deaths) is 1.09% per year.
event, assuming a Now, assuming this rate stays
constant growth rate constant (which, in reality, it does
of 1.09% per annum.
not), our post-click population would
The dashed line
indicates the pre-event increase by a factor of 1.0109 every
population level. 12 months. So, 3.8 billion people
would rise to 3.84 billion after one
year, to 3.88 billion after two years, to
3.93 billion after three years, and so on.
Based on our assumption of a
constant growth rate, it would take 64
years for Earth’s population to recover
to the pre-click level, as shown in
About the author
Figure 1. Of course, if Malthus is to be
Rob Mastrodomenico believed, the rate of population growth
is the founder of Global would likely increase with fewer people
Sports Statistics and a around, due to reduced demand on
statistical ambassador
of the Royal Statistical resources. So 64 years is probably a
Society. conservative estimate. n
© 2018 The Royal Statistical Society
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