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The Great Stanford Buffy Population Equilibrium Study

Posted by chrisd on 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."

9 of 302 comments (clear)

  1. Re:SW by ccpaxton · · Score: 0, Troll

    It's really hard to get "an" Phd in English...

  2. Excuse me? by Scott+Madin · · Score: 0, Troll
    ...and furthermore the equilibrium is stable...

    Did you think, at all, before you wrote that? What do you think "equilibrium" means?

    --

    Pancakes is the better part of valor.

  3. Tax dollars at work! by DAldredge · · Score: 0, Troll

    I am glad our tax dollars that support education are being put to such good use. This is much better than working on a more efficient energy source!

    1. Re:Tax dollars at work! by DAldredge · · Score: 0, Troll

      You are wrong.

      A large portion of college budgets comes from tax dollars.

  4. Stanford Is Easy For The Rich by LadyJessica · · Score: 0, Troll

    I'm sorry, but I just had to reply to this.

    This is stupid. I can't believe that Stanford might give a PhD for this. Oh, wait a minute. That's right. It's Stanford. That means that as long as your parents can afford the obscene tuition you will get whatever degree they pay for.

    By the way, I live in Palo Alto right next to Stanford. I know these people. Did you know that the most upscale shopping center in Silicon Valley is almost on the Stanford campus? I went to UCSD and I didn't furnish my dorm from Crate & Barrel, and I didn't shop for clothes at Neiman Marcus or even Wilkes Bashford. I'm not bitter. I swear! :-)

    --

    -- Jessica
    The mutant geek grrl from Hell.

    1. Re:Stanford Is Easy For The Rich by LadyJessica · · Score: 0, Troll

      Oops. I'm sorry. I had the temerity to criticize Stanford so somebody rightly modded my post as a troll. I'm so sorry. I'm sure that that person's moderation was completely fair.

      Let me reiterate succinctly: a PhD for studying a banal concept from a fictional teevee show is dumb if your background isn't sociology.

      --

      -- Jessica
      The mutant geek grrl from Hell.

  5. Re:No no, allow /me/ by LadyJessica · · Score: 0, Troll

    Thank you for correcting me. I'm very sorry for being so stupid. I'll go kill myself now. Will that make you happy? You couldn't say things nicely, or at least with a little humor could you?

    --

    -- Jessica
    The mutant geek grrl from Hell.

  6. All... by Stalyn · · Score: 0, Troll

    non-science-related graduate students are full of shit. I'm sure you could teach monkeys to write some bullshit about anything... oh wait we did.

    --
    The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
  7. Other questions that need our attention ... by Malakye · · Score: 0, Troll

    I do hope that the next research project taken on in the free time of someone with too much of it on their hands explains the social psychology behind the phenomenon that is Hulkamania. Calculating exact levels of Hulkamania as a function of steroid use, beard colour, ring attire, time since last retirement, crowd age and location, federation, current wrestling allies, manager, and orange tint of leathery outer Hulk shell would be most informative.

    However, I fear we may need someone from Cambridge or Harvard. The math promises to be very complex, and should not be attempted by Stanford students students unless carefully supervised. ;)

    ~ m