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The Great Stanford Buffy Population Equilibrium Study 317

Posted by chrisd from the spike-as-cellular-automata dept.
Suture writes "A PhD candidate in ecology at Stanford University has done an ecological analysis of humans and vampires in Sunnydale, the home of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He took some initial assumptions on rates of population growth, vampire feeding, etc and plugged them into a differential equations model. What he got was an equilibrium human population of 36,346, and an vampire population of around 18, and furthermore the equilibrium is stable. His conclusion was that even though the show's designers are not ecologists, they managed to come up with ideas that actually made ecological sense. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see a pretty cool spiral graph of human population vs vampire population."
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The Great Stanford Buffy Population Equilibrium Study More

The Great Stanford Buffy Population Equilibrium Study

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  • Wow (Score:5, Funny)

    by unterderbrucke ( 628741 ) <unterderbrucke@yahoo.com> on Friday December 06, 2002 @10:00PM (#4830293)
    and I thought I had too much time on my hands...

    • Re:Wow (Score:4, Funny)

      by UnixRevolution ( 597440 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @11:08PM (#4830613) Homepage Journal
      You mean when i was taking high-school physics and did calculations such as the impact speed of the chalupa on the head of the taco bell dog in the commercial?

    • Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)

      by Dirtside ( 91468 ) on Saturday December 07, 2002 @03:28AM (#4831521) Journal
      So instead of wasting your time coming up with vampire population ecology models, you're reading about it on Slashdot. This is something to gloat about? :)
    • I knew I was at a geeky college (Johns Hopkins) when the prof. proved during the first day of advanced inorganic chemistry thant dilitium crystals were chemically and energistically unstable and could not be created. Of course we didn't look into other things which might have made it feasible.

      I thought "Wow, this is really funny", and then I was somewhat disapointed that the cyrstals couldn't work. Kinda like being told there was no Santa
    • Like, when I was in high school and we were studying physics, and I wondered what would happen to a moose if it got hit by a high-speed train AND the impact would be fully elastical (which were the only impacts we knew how to work with)?

      The moose would go into orbit. I know that now.

  • SW (Score:5, Funny)

    by gummijoh ( 516218 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @10:01PM (#4830304) Homepage
    I got an Phd for making an essay about the fact that Star Wars could not be real... not in this galaxy nor any other!

  • I think the real question is: (Score:5, Funny)

    by nuwayser ( 168008 ) <pete AT tux DOT org> on Friday December 06, 2002 @10:03PM (#4830311) Homepage Journal
    are there enough vampires in sunnyvale to sustain the show for another season?
    • are there enough vampires in sunnyvale to sustain the show for another season?

      It appears not, from TVTome [tvtome.com]

      Four days after the airing of this episode, Joss Whedon announced that this would be the last season of Buffy, feeling that the show had come full circle

  • Spike Quote (Score:3, Funny)

    by T-Kir ( 597145 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @10:09PM (#4830342) Homepage

    Spike: And I should do what with my spare time? Sit at home knitting cunning sweater sets? Ep: Out of My Mind

    Just in case people think I have way too much time on my hands, I did a Google search and this [angelfire.com] was at the top of the list.

    I must say the spiral curve the guy did looks a bit hallucinogenic... maybe he was on something?

  • Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Cali Thalen ( 627449 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @10:10PM (#4830350) Homepage
    OK, while I can certainly go along with watching second-rate actors in bad make-up and cute actresses, throwing around a few equations that no one is likely to examine, and one confusing graph...and earning (possibly) a PhD in the process, what really got my attention was the line:

    "And to be fair, I'll tell you that my first order guesses, while probably not too far off, were chosen at least partly to obtain a reasonable result on our first try."

    Now THAT is my idea of effort!

    • I wouldn't count too heavily on him getting a PhD for this. It's a modified predator-prey model. It's not too dissimilar to what you might go over in an undergraduate class in dynamical systems. This is more along the lines of what a math geek might do for kicks.
  • for next year's Ignobel awards.
  • ...all the demons, witches, and number of times Angel has been resurrected?

  • Hmmmmmm..... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Audacious ( 611811 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @10:12PM (#4830363) Homepage
    The graph looks almost like a bad drawing of Dante's Inferno. Each twist is yet another level leading to hell.

    Which, since Sunnyvale is where the hellmouth is - it sort of all works out. In a strange, sort of demented way.

    (I think I'll go watch the Buffy musical again. It's got class. It's got style. And until you burn up - it sticks with you for a while.)

  • It's obviously in jest! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LojaK ( 79978 ) <(ac.ciretose) (ta) (todhsals)> on Friday December 06, 2002 @10:13PM (#4830364) Homepage
    This paper isn't a thesis paper for pete's sake! It isn't a dissertation! It's OBVIOUSLY a lark. He's a fan of Buffy, and he decided to engage his brain and see what he could conclude about the Buffy-verse. It's a hoot, relax people.

    -- L.

    • Re:It's obviously in jest! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by LostCluster ( 625375 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @10:44PM (#4830504)
      I once wrote a paper analyzing the data from the Fastest-Finger qualifying game on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, using info from a website that logged all of the qualifying player's names and times. I then performed simple stat anaysis tests to show that the reason more men made it into the contestant chair is because more men were attempting, and that women were actually better at playing the Fastest Finger game, despite claims that the game favored men.

      Valid enough to be published and silence the critics? No way... far too little data do have that kind of certainty. Valid enough to get me an A+ on the project... yep. This was for a stats class, all I needed was to prove that I knew how to write a statistical report, not that I could collect solid data or pick a topic that meant anything to the world.

      Maybe there was a serious reason for him to do the "study"... but I don't think it's gonna get published in any place with scientific credibility.
    • This paper isn't a thesis paper for pete's sake! It isn't a dissertation! It's OBVIOUSLY a lark. He's a fan of Buffy, and he decided to engage his brain and see what he could conclude about the Buffy-verse. It's a hoot, relax people.

      But! all the best research is done when people have a personal itch to scratch. That's what makes this so engaging...

  • A good page... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Hadean ( 32319 ) <hadean.dragon+sl ... g m a i l . c om> on Friday December 06, 2002 @10:15PM (#4830372)
    For good Buffy information (they had this story linked a while back I believe), check out Buffista [buffistas.org]. Their links page (http://www.buffistas.org/links.php) is quite extensive... Not bad.

    And, of course, you have to check out TV Tome's Buffy page [tvtome.com], with good reviews, show guide and spoilers...

    Any other good ones?

  • Another stat; good writers do their homework (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06, 2002 @10:15PM (#4830373)
    even though the show's designers are not ecologists, they managed to come up with ideas that actually made ecological sense

    Maybe the writers did their research.
    Successful shows usually have good writers who often do their homework.

    Writers could even have first hand vampire experience!
    You never know. Only a slayer can tell!

    • There's one problem with this paper... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Lendrick ( 314723 ) on Saturday December 07, 2002 @02:15AM (#4831316) Homepage Journal
      It doesn't take into account how the citizens feel. Having grown up in a town of 40,000, I can tell you that one murder was pretty big news. I can only recall hearing about murders two times during my ten or so years living there. Even assuming that I missed a few, that still wouldn't account for 18 vampires feeding once every three days (that's 2190 deaths per year--13 percent of the total murder rate for the ENTIRE UNITED STATES [fbi.gov] (~16000/yr)).

      Anybody with half a brain would have moved out of that town long ago... and people ceratinly wouldn't be moving in.
      • Nobody ever said a vampire has to kill the creature from which it feeds...

        Imagine a vampire grabbing someone from behind and sucking them till they pass out.

        That's how they did it in Vampire:The Masquerade from White Wolf [white-wolf.com], furthermore, in that game, if a avampire licks the bite wound it closes quickly, hiding the evidence...clever...

        Of course one may wonder how many Sunnydale vamps get a chance to feed before being staked...

  • Rabbits and Foxes (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Brackney ( 257949 )
    I don't get the novelty of this. It's the classic "Rabbits and Foxes" problem that any mathematics or engineering student should have been exposed to in a differential equations course. Tuning the free parameters in the equations was probably "Sunnydale" specific, but otherwise, what's the big deal?

    • I think the point (mentioned in the ed. comments) (Score:5, Interesting)

      by moogla ( 118134 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @10:41PM (#4830496) Homepage Journal
      is that it's remarkable how (after making basic assumptions) the very ideas of a stable vampire/human equilibrium are sound, and they are consistent with the "normal" Buffy universe. Many television shows and movies are mathematically improbable in even the most basic sense (like the ecosystem in the Matrix, for example). More importantly, we can assume that this was not intentional on the writer's part, I'm sure they wouldn't even grasp the "classic problem"; they probably didn't study engineering or mathematics in school. What the author of the study doesn't state, but I will, is the implication of his exercise in intellectual masturbation taken with the previous assumption.
      Why would it work out, what made these writers different than other writers? I think it's a plot driven element, and a reflection of the real causes of social attitudes. I'm willing to venture a guess that they (the writers) kept the number of vampires and incidents in the series low so that it would seem more likely people wouldn't realize that there were real vampires around in the fictional Buffy scenario. From this, we determine vampires could exist in stable equilibrium if this was the case. If the prey on the show knew about the predators in a larger sense, the equations wouldn't be so simple any longer, and the stable equilibrium would be lost. What we consider "under the radar" and thus unnoticed is a perfect niche for small, select groups of predators to operate within, in REAL life. So in conclusion, the writers are clearly not buffoons, and your neighboor IS a vampire.
      QED.
      • More importantly, we can assume that this was not intentional on the writer's part, I'm sure they wouldn't even grasp the "classic problem

        I'm not sure that's fair to the writers and directors. The predator-prey/vampire-human problem is fairly fundamental to the internal realism of the show, and IMO the writers of Buffy took care to try and keep the internal realism of the show fairly high.
        • You think the internal realism of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER is really high? By exactly what definition of reality? Buffy is a low budget vampire and hot chick based soap drama for godsake!
          • Have you ever watched it?

            And I mean really watched it, sat down and watched the two-hour roughly-in-order shots on FX at 7:00 EST?

            It's quite possibly the best-written low-budget hot chick show ever. Every inconsistency is either explained away or simply believable, given a simple modicum of suspension_of_disbelief.

            Contrast this with, oh, Star Trek or Andromeda or Farscape, or the other common "sci fi" series setups, and you'll see the "internal realism" he was talking about.
            • I admit, I'm not the most knowledgeable on the shows and haven't watched much. I just occasionally caught brief glimpses of what appeared to be vampire based 90210 with only one hot chick.
              • Jumping in here, I too thought it was "Xena does 90210", and wrote it off as idiotic tripe. Then I realized that most authors I know are raving fans, along with two literature professors I know and a friend who writes mideval frame tales for fun. So I gave it a shot.

                It takes a handful of episodes to 'get it'. It really is phenominally deeply well written. It also has self parodying fluff on top that is, at it's best, witty banter that rivals Oscar Wilde. Once you're in, you realize that these are really well written episodes. As you watch, you realize the season has a structure. As you watch seasons, you realize that the seasons have a pattern and the entire show, has a structure where things from season three play out in season six, and themes that are treated one way in season two (when they are in high school) are revisited and reexamined in season six (when she's trying to raise her little sister after her mother dies).

                It does parody itself, but it's a tongue in cheek, knowing parody when it does. Buffy will acknowledge in side comments about her wardrobe. In season five and six, when things get much more 'real' and very gritty, they still have their Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (and Johnathan), who lighten things up, but wind up with a similar end.

                Good writing, surprisingly good acting (even Sarah Michelle Gellar, who I thought was a ditzy figurehead of the show until Season 5's 'The Body')... it's a great show. There's a reason some people say it's the best thing on television.

                --
                Evan

        • I remember High School. I remember when someone died. One guy got drunk and jumped onto the highway.

          One had a disease and died from that.

          I think there were two others - people I didn't know. I went to a High School of about 2000 in Orlando, Fl.

          If there was JUST ONE person at my high school whose neck was nearly ripped out and blood drained, it would have been a big deal - it would have seemed unreal.

          I remember watching an episode of this show where the principal was eaten by a pack of werewolves, who themselves were students who were later killed.

          And in the graduation episode, the mayor turned into a giant monster and destroyed the school.

          Someone from the High School dies almost every episode. There is no way this is realistic . There is no way this accounts for a stable population - its B.S. Vampires aren't the only thing that kill in Sunnydale.

          Of course, I must admire such a great work of BS.

  • A few more population genetics propositions... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jedi Paramedic ( 587254 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @10:17PM (#4830386)
    Obviously, this is a very simplified model, and it is very vulnerable to flawed assumptions. For example, our guesses as to how often vampires feed and sire could be well off the mark. And to be fair, I'll tell you that my first order guesses, while probably not too far off, were chosen at least partly to obtain a reasonable result on our first try. In addition to our parameter assumptions being vulnerable, we may have made mistakes in the overall structure of the model. For example, we know that vampires can live (albeit miserably) on non-human prey. We've also heard from Spike that while vampires can starve, they don't actually starve to death. Incorporating these facts into the model might give some very different results.
    Other modifiers:

    - Buffy's success at finding a mate versus others' successes (hers should be assumed to be higher, which would increase the incidence of vampire-killing traits in the population),
    - the (Dubya) Bush administration's environmental policy, and whether increased pollution is more harmful to the living or undead, and
    - If you introduce population genetics to "The WB Frog," will he suddenly change sex and have the potential to bear young (as do amphibians when populations are all female, i think)?

    the plot thickens...

  • what a bunch of whiners (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GunFodder ( 208805 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @10:20PM (#4830394)
    This looks like a clever way to exercise one's professional tools to solve a trivial yet interesting problem. Why are all of you whiners jumping on him?

    One factor that he left out was the attrition of vampires due to recovered conscience or suicide, which might be high considering their lifestyle. There must be a percentage of vampires that accidentally get caught in sunlight as well, although those dim bulbs might be the kinds that get slayed eventually anyway. Other than that the numbers look good.
    • Insofar as this is a real discussion ;) In the Jossverse, there have been only a tiny number of vampires that have committed suicide. Not a single one of them has ever "recovered conscience," although two vampires (Spike and Angel) have ended up with souls, so they have, in a manner of speaking, recovered their consciences -- but not through introspection, or anything, merely ("merely") through magical intervention.

      As far as suicide goes... only Darla (when she gave birth to Connor) and the vampire in the first episode of Angel season 3 (who had a magical operation to remove his heart, making him unkillable for 24 hours before he self-destructed) have ever really "committed suicide". There might be others but I don't think they would have a significant impact on the population.

  • Article is a joke (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06, 2002 @10:22PM (#4830404)
    I can't beleive this paper got published, are you kidding me? He fails to take into account trolls and werewolves, which would skew the numbers towards vampires, as they are natural allies. I too am scientist in the field of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and am preparing my own study, but unlike this quack I'm not throwing it out unfinished in the hopes of garnering awards and acclaim. I hesitate to think of the damage that will be done when people use these figures in their studies.
    • I hesitate to think of the damage that will be done when people use these figures in their studies.

      Indeed! I shudder to think of the droves of vampires moving to communities which can't possibly support them!

  • vampire migration factor (Score:5, Funny)

    by urbazewski ( 554143 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @10:22PM (#4830406) Homepage Journal
    from the article:
    Vampires are flocking to Sunnydale, since the Hellmouth is the underwordly equivalent of Silicon Valley, and the demon labor market is just too good to be true. Thus, we'll assume a yearly migration rate of about 10%, or the same as for the humans.

    It seems the author is forgetting about Angel --- Buffy spinoffs could make m, the rate of vampire migration negative. And should the exodus of VC's from Silicon Valley count as ex-migration of humans or of vampires?

  • In other Buffy-esq News... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Cyno01 ( 573917 ) <Cyno01@hotmail.com> on Friday December 06, 2002 @10:26PM (#4830422) Homepage
    I just found out that even if Angel were still on the air, Doyle would not be coming back. On Tuesday Glenn Quinn, the actor who played Doyle, died of unrevealed causes. More on this here [scifi.com].

  • Some People are just obsessed! (Score:4, Funny)

    by KristsInferno ( 630282 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @10:27PM (#4830426)
    I mean, come on! That is as bad as being one of those guys that constantly goes to a website, telling himself that it's "intelligent and newsworthy", but really just wants to post a load of crap to the net so that others might find him cool.


    Oh, shit, wait, I didn't mean.... damn.

  • Firefly on tonight (Score:4, Informative)

    by vandemar ( 82106 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @10:28PM (#4830433)
    I'm venturing on to a gray area of on-topicness, but...

    For those of you who don't know, Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, also has another genre show called Firefly.

    I just watched the latest episode (War Stories) tonight, and believe me when I tell you that if it hasn't aired in your timezone yet, you do not want to miss it. This one episode has got more character development, action (and I mean combat) and humor (and none of that slapstick stuff) than the entire season of Enterprise so far.

    Again, if you like Buffy (and even if you don't), don't miss tonight's Firefly. This one deserves high ratings, but that can only happen if people know it's being aired. So now you know.
    • VcR is set . . . Once the show goes on shcedule hiatus, which is Dec 12 I think that's when it dies, people hate look for shows.

    • Re:Firefly on tonight (Score:3, Insightful)

      by spun ( 1352 )
      Just watched it. Then had the misfortune of watching Men in Black II right after. Ugh! talk about a letdown.

      I've never been a big Buffy fan, but I have watched a few shows, and I've been impressed with the quality of the writing and the chemistry between the actors.

      Firefly has the same kind of humor that Buffy does. Joss seems to like poking fun at cliches (although this time, the good guys let the bad guy go instead of kicking him into an engine.) The acting is good. The characters are realistic and each have their own reasons for being on the ship.

      People have put Firefly down as a ripoff of Gene Rodenberry's 'Wagontrain to the Stars' idea, but from what I have seen, they have taken the idea literally and created a frontier that is more low tech and 'old west' in feel than anything in the Star Trek universe.

      As for MIB II, I wish I had a neuralyzer so I could wipe the memory from my mind.

      Oh yeah, and to everyone who didn't think the human-vampire ecology article was funny, or who thought it was a waste of time: good lord! you need a new humor chip upgrade.
    • ..but firefly is one of the best shows, ever.

      The show has great characters, great writing, some of the best villians, great action sequences, surprise tweists and really cool effects.
      But in tonight episode, that had all that AND a lesbian encounter.
      in short...
      Best...show...ever.

      Smile, it was funny.

  • meanwhile, in another universe... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ellen Ripley ( 221395 ) <ellen@britomartis.net> on Friday December 06, 2002 @10:34PM (#4830457) Journal
    What he got was an equilibrium human population of 36,346, and an vampire population of around 18, and furthermore the equilibrium is stable.

    The Camarilla Princes are going to be really pissed when they find out they've been running at ( 1 / 10^5 ) / ( 18 / 36346 ) of their optimal capacity.

    We Sabbat knew better, of course.

    Cousin Ellen
    • The Camarilla Princes are going to be really pissed....

      The Princes are aware they could sustain a greater population level of Kindred, but seek to hide their presence by keeping their numbers few. The real trick in a Camarilla vampire/human ecology is for the vampires to keep the humans unaware of their presence.

      The Sabbat believe they could live openly, and control their human herds through liberal application of Disciplines. The Camarilla know this would lead to another Dark Age of war and death, for if Buffy were to ever pierce the Masquerade, all Hellmouth would break lose.

  • This can't possibly be right (Score:3, Funny)

    by gelfling ( 6534 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @10:34PM (#4830461) Homepage Journal
    They're ignoring the Infinite Alternate Universes theory as posited by Dr. Qrlang in New Superman #35.

  • We need to calculate the buffy factor... (Score:3, Funny)

    by shaitand ( 626655 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @11:11PM (#4830625) Journal
    It is without a doubt established that buffy is hot, how many male vampires will forsake their own kind to nail buffy??? This must be calculated into the equation.
  • He assumes that buffy and her gang slay 6 vamps per year. I've seen single fight-scenes with a higher score than that.

    Assuming an average of 3 Vamps dusted per episode, and there are, what, about 24 episodes per season? That's 72 per year, or 4 times the total vamp population !

    Mind you, you could change your assumptions for Vampire 'birth rate' to have each vamp sire a new one on average every 3 months, and the sums would probably work out ok.

  • Think of this as a lego story. Sure maybe its silly and pointless, but it was fun for the guy who did it. And for chrissakes he did it on he's free time FOR FUN. This isn't his dissertation, no tax dollars were harmed in the production of this paper. He just HAPPENS to be a PhD candidate, and student of ecology.

  • Only 6 vamps dusted per year ???? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by The Famous Druid ( 89404 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @11:40PM (#4830751)
    I've seen fight scenes with a higher score than that.

    The average is probably 3 per episode, or 72 per season.

    You'd have to substantially increase the vampire 'birth rate' to maintain a population of 18 vamps.

    If each vamp sired a new one every 3 months or so it should work.
    • Right, and the vampire migration rate is also too low. (10% a year is 2 with the equilibrium of 18). In fact, it probably shouldn't be dependent on the current number of vampires (if Sunnydale had 0 vampires at some point, that shouldn't stop all migration). Or there should at least be a constant migration component.

  • Since I presume Brian Thomas will read this.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cyberon22 ( 456844 ) on Friday December 06, 2002 @11:59PM (#4830810)
    I think it would really help formal modelers trying to "communicate" their results to the field as a whole would to be clearer regarding the underlying mathematics involved.

    Specifically -- you set up the derivatives very clearly. You make it clear what the overall results are going to be, and it is intuitive why. Why not show casual mathematicians like me the equations as you've worked them out on a step-by-step basis? They might seem simple to you, but they aren't to other people less familiar with differential equations....

    Simple telling us what the equilibrium outcome is isn't as powerful as actually showing us the mathetical logic that leads us to that outcome on a step-by-step basis. I mean, I've done some economics, game theory, etc., but I still get lost reading your write-up.

    If you really want to spend your career helping non-professionals understand the merits of formal modelling, help us out by not cutting corners on the actual mathematical proofs.
    • I'm not Brian Thomas, but here goes:

      The concept in a nutshell is that you take the two differential equations (Hdot,Vdot), set them equal to zero, and solve for the roots (H,V) that solve that system of equations. This works since you're interested in equilibria, i.e., points where the state does not change if you are at that particular point. If the velocity (STATEdot) is zero, it's obviously not changing.

      To find the stability of each equilibrium, you examine the eigenvalues of the Jacobian of the system of differential equations. In the case which Brian discusses, each of the two eigenvalues would be of equal negative real part, and opposite nonzero imaginary part.

      The only issue I have is that the system he is talking about is discrete (you can't have portions of people, and I'm guessing you can't have portions of vampires, though not being a Buffy fan, the lore may prove to state otherwise). With a number of vampires not much larger than the resolution of the vampire population state, the effect is likely to be nontrivial. I wonder what analysis of the discrete-state system would reveal.
    • Didn't you read the notes? He has a brilliant proof of the theorem that the margin is too small to contain.

      ;)
  • In traditional vampire movies, the vampires have to keep a low profile, to avoid getting lynched by the local townspeople. Visitors and travellers seem to be fair game. Nobody cares if a few tourists disappear. All the townspeople know what areas to avoid. The small number of potential victims means that the vampire population must be kept very small. New vampires seem to have a very high mortality rate. Old vampires are almost impossible to permanently kill. Even if they get staked, someone will eventually show up and bleed all over the vampire's remains.

  • hrm @ the graph (Score:3, Funny)

    by carpe_noctem ( 457178 ) on Saturday December 07, 2002 @02:16AM (#4831321) Homepage Journal
    funny...if you kind of squint your eyes, that graph looks EXACTLY like Sarah Michelle Gellar's...erm...heh.

    *cough*.

    well, yeah, you know. ;)
  • I've always wondered if periodic apocalypses acted as ditrubances to demon populations (I mean, so many die at the hands of the Slayer as she comabts it, or they're offered as sacrifices, etc. etc...)

    In this case, does apocalypse help regulate demon diversity as a sort of intermediate disturbance?

    Also, kudos to ecology geekiness on /.!
  • It's never that simple, is it? You always have the extra unexpected/unpredictable element : Yah, even in case of vampires. Consider Blade ][; it wasn't just vampires and humans. You have the daywalker(aka blade) and you have the reapers. I guess the large number of vampires can be attributed to the larger size of the study area.
    The equation between vampires and humans is interesting; but why ignore these other elements? (unless ofcourse this is a BUFFY fan analysis)

  • Sunnydale is much too easy (Score:3, Interesting)

    by panurge ( 573432 ) on Saturday December 07, 2002 @08:46AM (#4832053)
    I'm waiting for the Thomas analysis of populations in Ankh-Morpork. There should be sufficient information in the Pratchett oeuvre. How many trolls? How many dwarves? And exactly how big is Unseen University?

    There must be someone out there prepared to sponsor a Chair of Imaginary Population Studies and give this guy a job.

  • The average BIRTH rate for the US is 14.7 per 1000 population. Even if there were no deaths of any kind other than those due to vampires Sunnydale's population (birth rate 385 per year) could only support one or two vampires (assuming 150-200 victims per vamp per year). The real total would be lower due to natural deaths and the huge rush of people leaving a town with that number of murders per capita.

    Rabbits and foxes are not a good model since humans can and would leave the area as fast as they could. Even Willow wouldn't be enough to keep me around that bloodbath. Probably. Well...

    TWW

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