When Mothers Ruled the Earth...

In honor of mothers everywhere, I'd like to take this day to point out something you may not have noticed before.

Do you see the pattern here (aside from the cartoonist getting lazier and lazier)? Everyone alive today has one mother, two grandmothers, four great grandmothers, and so forth: in each subsequent generation we trace backwards, there is twice the number of motherly ancestors. And this number grows quite rapidly: if we go back 7 generations, or about 175 years, we can extrapolate 64 great-great-great-great-great-grandmothers living around the 1830s for anyone alive today. How about around the time of the birth of the USA? In 1776, 237 years ago, or about 10 generations back, 512 great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmothers could be claimed by anyone today. That's a lot of Mother's Day cards.

But now let's look on a global scale. Given almost 7 billion people alive today, each with 512 great-great-yadda-yadda-grandmas in the year 1776, how many total mothers were living at the time? The answer: OVER THREE AND A HALF TRILLION MOTHERS. More like "Founding Mothers"!!!

Mothers and the Population Growth Conspiracy

So that's 3.5 trillion mothers back in 1776, dwarfing the mere 7 billion people alive today. What's happening? Well, as you can see, the human population on earth is actually SHRINKING EXPONENTIALLY, contrary to the ongoing conspiracy of population growth. No, our numbers are not growing. We are dying out in droves every generation, coming closer and closer to extinction. Why, WHY is this fact kept hidden from us?? Probably because all the mothers didn't want you to worry your pretty little head over it.

With the number of mothers halving with each generation, let's see how fast all this will happen:

 

Date	# of Living Mothers	Landmark
2013	3.5 billion?	present day
c.2038	1.75 billion	The numbers of mothers will be half of what it is today.
c.2100	350 million	There will be only 1 mother alive for every 10 mothers alive today.
c.2365	196,000	Each country will have only 1,000 living mothers.
c.2475	9,800	Each country will have only 50 living mothers; the USA will have only one mother per state.
c.2615	196	Each country will have only 1 national mother, and these will begin to die off.
c.2755	4	The last surviving mothers of the world will form a lunch club of four members.
c.2805	1	The last mother on Earth.

So only 800-odd years left before inevitable EXTINCTION, ladies and fellows. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

The Matriarchal Timescale

For some limited consolation, let's return to that number of 3.5 trillion - the total number of motherly ancestors alive in the year 1776. This is a mind-staggeringly large number. This is almost ten times the number of trees estimated to exist in the entire world today (400 billion). How much room would 3.5 trillion mothers even take up? If a single mother, standing up, takes up roughly half a square meter of floor space, then 3.5 trillion mothers take up 1.75 trillion square meters, or 1.75 million square kilometers - a little less than the entire size of Mexico. Of course, if they all lived spread out over the entire world, it might not have been so bad.

But what was it like even earlier? Was there a time, let's say, when things WERE very crowded? Obviously: yes! Let's explore that point and several other important landmarks in the timeline below. By the way, now that you know about the conspiracy, you can forget those lies about the dinosaurs ('Terrible lizards' the size of schoolbuses? Did you really fall for all that?) and prehistoric eras. Amend your history books to the Matriarchal Timescale:

Date	# of Living Mothers	Landmark
2013	3.5 billion?	present day
c.1700	20 trillion	Mothers take up all available land surface in Europe (10 million km2).
c.1625	150 trillion	Mothers take up half of available land surface in the world (75 million km2).
c.1600	300 trillion	Mothers take up all available land surface in the world (150 million km2).

Before roughly 1600 C.E., MOTHERS RULED THE EARTH. Prior to this time, mothers must have existed at least partially in ocean waters. If we estimate an aquatic mother takes up 1 square meter of water surface when floating and 1 cubic meter of space when submerged, we then have:

Date	# of Living Mothers	Landmark
c.1588	460 trillion	Mothers, when floating, fill up all available water surface in the Pacific Ocean, as well as all available land surface in the world (310 million km2).
c.1575	660 trillion	Mothers, when floating or standing, cover the entire surface of the Earth (500 million km2).

AKA MOTHERS BLANKET THE EARTH and sing it lullabies and tuck it in.

Date	# of Living Mothers	Landmark
c.1500	4,400 trillion	Mothers cover the entire surface of the Earth and completely fill the Mediterranean (500 km2 + 4.4 million km3).
c.1350	310,000 trillion	Mothers cover the entire surface of the Earth and completely fill the Atlantic Ocean (500 km2 + 310 million km3).
c.1300	1,336,000 trillion	Mothers completely fill the oceans and cover all land surfaces of the Earth (500 km2 + 1.335 billion km3).

THE EARTH IS FILLED TO THE BRIM WITH MOTHERS.

Finally, if we assume a mother is roughly 50 kg:

Date	# of Living Mothers	Landmark
c.890	119,000,000,000 trillion	The total mass of Mothers is equal to the total mass of Earth (5.97 x 1024 kg).

THE EARTH IS LITERALLY MADE OF MOTHERS; in the year 890, "Mother Earth" was a literal term.

In summary, starting with quite simple reasoning, we are able to perceive the entire History of Motherhood on planet Earth, which began around the year 890 (1,123 years ago), and will come to an end around 2805 (792 years from now). All in all, the adventure will last just about two millenia. We've already passed the halfway point, so be sure to spend time with your mothers while you still can! HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

References:
http://ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/global/etopo1_ocean_volumes.html
http://www.net-comber.com/worldarea.html