re: Everyone alive today has had a living ancestor at every point in history

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Calls me a retard after saying:

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you'd have had 1,073,741,824 living ancestors on Earth in 1418. 


And if you're going to say "I meant only if they could all be alive," then state that in the post. Don't expect everyone else to read something dumb and know you didn't mean it to be dumb.

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No, he called you a retard because 30 generations back, assuming you have no inbreeding or adultery, you DO have 1,073,741,824 people in that single generation. See, if he were counting ALL of the ancestors, it would be 2^30+2^29+2^28+...+2^0. But he's talking one generation. 2^30.

Start with yourself. That's 2^0. 1. Now, how many ancestors do you have in your parents' generation, one generation back? 2^1. That's two. How many in your grandparents' generation, two back? 2^2. That's 4. 30 generations back? 2^30. 1,073,741,824. That large number is not a sum. It's a single generation.

Exponentiation: Multiplication's tricky friend.