My son is at the top of a pyramid. In the level below are his father and his mother.?

Question

In the level below that are their parents , now bearing in mind that every parent has 2 parents of their own , how many levels would I need to go down before the number of people in that level exceeds the number of people alive at that time? Considering the human race must have started with very few people.

Answer 1

its impossible to know

Answer 2

232.

Answer 3

Too clever for me *dumb expression on face*.

Answer 4

You're dealing with powers of the number 2.

ie. one level down, there are 2 people.

Two levels down, there are 2 x 2 people (4).

Three levels down, there are 2 x 2 x 2 people (8)

Ten levels down, there are 2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2 people (1024) (there are ten twos there).

So you need to work out which power of 2 exceeds the total population of the planet.

However the pyramid structure is totally theoretical and assumes that every human being only has 1 child, which is a very very bad assumption.

Answer 5

can't work it out specifally. but as we move back through the generations couples were more likely to be related in some way. for instance a couple that were first cousins, the children of this couple would have 2 sets of grandparents but only 1 set of great-grandparents. yes i know we tend not to marry our first cousin nowadays, but it was acceptable once. people tended to marry people locally and these were usually relatives of some sort.

so we are not on the top of a pyramid at all.

Answer 6

well if you dont know i aint gonna tell you

Answer 7

What???