Robert J. Smith, a mathematician from the University of Ottawa, along with others, have produced a serious look at the mathematical epidemiology of a zombie plague, which has been published in the journal "Infectious Disease Modelling Research Progress."
A number of articles have interviewed Smith about the project which originated as a student class project, but the actual paper is available for download here.
8 comments:
OK, so where would you go in your home town if there was a zombie outbreak? Me, I'd grab fishing poles, some basic necessities and head for a local marina to steal a boat.
Its a tough question to answer. If I lived on the coast, I would take a sail boat to one of the unpopulated islands off the coast. Live on the boat, catch fish and collect fresh water from the island. That said, you'd need to be able to repel pirates and you'd be over run with refuges competing for resources.
The advantage of holing up in a compound somewhere is having lots of bodies to defend the place. The disadvantage is having a lot of bodies eating up resources.
And lots of bodies arguing about what to do. Do not want!
I'd also consider a mountain retreat, but I don't think I'd sleep well any place connected by land to the world of the zombies.
I threw you a link, by the way. I wanted to do this post on my own blog and see what people had to say, but you did it first. Let's see if anyone else comes to play!
Recommend you all read The Zombie Survival Guide. It's on the bookshelf at the B-Daddy household. The survival rate graphs don't look pretty.
And, if you get to choose who you take with you - of course your loved ones, but then it gets more complicated... a doctor would be valuable, as would a hunter, maybe a shoesmith, but in survival mode, everyone has to pull their own weight, a lesson society today has forgotten.
We used to say we'd take down the bridges between here and the cities to help provide that defensible zone, never thinking that during hte summer, you can walk across the river.
The people you bring need to be useful?!? Uh oh.
Err, are theoretical mathematicians useful?
Folks, thanks for all the comments.
KT, humm theoretical mathematician, well I'd say in a zombie post apocalyptic world that an engineer, right!
B-Daddy, Got Max's book. Disagreed with him on some things, but enjoyed it greatly. A second must have book is World War Z.
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