Science & Technology

Zombies could wipe out humanity in 100 days

By T.K. Randall
January 6, 2017 ·  26 comments

What would you do in the event of a zombie virus outbreak ? Image Credit: CC BY 2.0 sookie The research, which was conducted by physics students at the University of Leicester, was based on the assumption that each zombie would be able to locate at least one victim each day and that they would have a 90% chance of infecting anyone that they happened to come in contact with.

After approximately 100 days, the study suggests, there would be a mere 273 human survivors - a figure that would make even The Walking Dead seem like an optimistic scenario by comparison.

On the plus side however the researchers also determined that if mankind did happen to find a way to combat the zombies then there would be a good chance of population recovery in the long run.The team's findings were based on the SIR ( susceptible, infectious, recovered ) model which is more traditionally used to calculate the spread of real diseases through the population.

"Every year we ask students to write short papers for the Journal of Physics Special Topics," said Dr Mervyn Roy from the University of Leicester's Department of Physics and Astronomy.

"It lets the students show off their creative side and apply some of the physics they know to the weird, the wonderful, or the everyday."

Source: IFL Science | Comments (26)

Tags: Zombie