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Student Publishes Extensive Statistics On the Population of Middle-Earth

Posted by samzenpus on from the how-many-hobbits? dept.

First time accepted submitter dsjodin writes "There are only 19% females in Tolkien's works and the life expectancy of a Hobbit is 96.24 years. In January 2012 chemical engineering student Emil Johansson published a website with the hope for it to become a complete Middle-Earth genealogy. Now, ten months later, he has published some interesting numbers derived from the database of 923 characters. The site features a set of unique graphs helping us understand the world Tolkien described. Perhaps the most interesting ones are showing the decrease of the longevity of Men and the change in population of Middle-Earth throughout history. The latter was also recently published in the September edition of Wired Magazine."

6 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. Everybody knows. by sunking2 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Dwarf women often get confused with the men.

  2. Re:Serious points raised? by mrbester · · Score: 3, Informative

    Pretty much all of the works by Anne McCaffrey, Ursula Le Guin and Marion Zimmer Bradley immediately spring to mind.

    --
    "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
  3. Re:Serious points raised? by mrbester · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Tale of Beren and Lúthien was written by Tolkien as an epic love story deliberately casting himself and his wife as the characters.

    --
    "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
  4. Re:Serious points raised? by thelexx · · Score: 4, Informative

    "wielding 50+ pound swords"

    Swords do not weigh that much. The Wallace Sword is five feet six inches long and weighs six pounds. It's at the upper end of claymore size/weight and of swords generally.

    --
    "Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
  5. Sorry the site is down! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    As the creator of LotrProject I can only offer my deepest apologies for the site being down. My host has temporarily shut it down -_-
    Being featured on Slashdot is a dream come true.

    Best,
    Emil

  6. Re:Hobbit life expectancy skewed by OldBus · · Score: 4, Informative

    I guess the way this comment was phrased is why it is at -1, but it is essentially true. There appears to be no evidence that going to Valinor gave immortality (see especially the whole farce of the attempted invasion by the Numoreans). Tuor is mentioned that he *might* have become immortal, but in the context that this is uncertain, and definitely very unusual.