Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Did you see the Census Bureau's Population Clock flip over to 300,000,000 this morning? I turned on the computer at 7:30 and there were 64 people to go, then forgot to check again until almost 8:00 and I was late by 40 people. Oh well. Mom duties... It's cool to see all those zeros in a row. Here's a screen shot a friend snapped: (Thanks Lisa!)

Click to enlarge.

3 comments:

AM Kingsfield said...

That darned askingstoo!

I saw the count thanks to your phone call. I gathered my kids around too. It was kind cool. Once it jumped two numbers and we said "Oh look, twins!" We agreed it would be depressing to see the number go down.

How does it know? What info feeds that website?

Anne said...

The formula is based on the following: one birth every seven seconds, one death every 13 seconds, and net international migration adds one person every 31 seconds.
Click here for the Official Census Press Release.
In addition to these formulas, it's all based on estimates, based on lots and lots of statistical research and expertise.

So when you see the number increase by two, it's not twins, it's what happens sometimes when you have a 6 second refresh rate on the server and a 11 second population increase rate.

Mom said...

Twins sound like a more fun explaination. We watched the numbers change too. It was just as exciting as the official coming of the autumnal equinox.