How many zombies would fill the grand canyon?

[FaxModem1]

Z Nation is a show on Syfy, about a band of people transporting someone who is immune to the zombie virus from New York to a lab in California. It's made by the Asylum, so it is filled with weirdness and rather cheesy crap.

For example, in one episode, they are able to steer a zunami(a horde of zombies so large, it creates a dust storms and even rumbles the earth with that many zombies moving in one direction as one mass) into the grand canyon.

Someone even uploaded it onto youtube:



So, the next episode, they bring up the possibility(jokingly) that the Grand Canyon might have been filled up and that's why they are still encountering zombies. So, how many zombies would it take to fill it up enough so that more zombies could cross through?

[biostem]

Well, if we're trying to be realistic, you would reach a point where the zombies toward the bottom would start to get smushed into goo...


Some additional data I found, (pasted from various sources, not my material):

That means 7 billion humans weigh about 490 million tons. "Since we are comprised of mostly water, which has a density of 1000 kg/m^3, the average volume of a human is 0.07 m^3. "That means the total volume of all humans would be 490 million cubic metres, a cube with sides 788m long."


The greatest depths of the Grand Canyon lie just over one mile beneath its rim. The volume of the Grand Canyon is estimated to be 5.45 trillion cubic yards. The total length of the Colorado River is 1,450 miles.


http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology ... wn-3483253

[Simon_Jester]

The Grand Canyon itself only runs for 277 miles. Average width is something like ten miles. At the narrowest points it is 'only' several hundred yards, but if we just say "the Grand Canyon" we can assume an average part of the canyon, not the skinny bits at the end. The average depth is one mile.

To construct a bridge (or rather, causeway) of zombie bodies from one side to the other would require building a causeway ten miles long and one mile high. How wide would it have to be? Obviously, a pile of zombies would tend to 'slide' into a conical or triangular shape, just like any other pile of loose objects.

The key question here is to find the angle of repose of a pile of zombies. If that angle is very large, then the sides of the zombie causeway will be very steep, and the zombie causeway will itself be narrow. If the angle is small, the sides of the causeway will be shallow, and the causeway must be wide.

Zombie bodies are not a very sturdy construction material, so I would expect their angle of repose to be quite shallow, comparable to that of mud. Try to build a steep ramp out of zombie bodies, and the ones at the top will tumble to the bottom, even if the zombies themselves are no longer animate. To some extent, interlocking tangles of zombie limbs might hold a ramp together, but the sheer size and weight of this ramp is enough that I expect the pressures involved will break up such tangles.

I estimate that the angle of repose for zombie bodies will be like that of mud or wet clay- say, fifteen degrees.

So you can picture the zombie causeway as having a cross-section of an isoceles triangle, with a narrow pathway at the top marked by a 150-degree angle. The sides of the triangle slope gently down to the canyon floor, where they form a 15-degree angle on each side with the canyon itself. Given that the tangent of fifteen degrees is about one quarter, the ramp will have to be roughly four times as wide as it is tall, on each side.

So to get a causeway a mile high, you would need said causeway to be eight miles wide. The cross-sectional area is therefore

(1/2)*base*height...
Or four square miles.

Then, you need the causeway to be ten miles long, so you need forty cubic miles of zombies.

We can assume zombies have roughly the same density as water.

We can safely assume that the vast majority of the zombies on the bottom will be compacted by the weight of the zombies above so that the total density of zombie will be roughly that of human tissue, with no significant void spaces between (the hamburger that used to be) the zombies. This simplifies our calculations.

Forty cubic miles of zombies would be approximately 160 cubic kilometers of zombies, or approximately 160 billion cubic meters of zombies, or (if zombies are roughly as dense as water AFTER being crushed by the billions of tons of zombies above them) about 160 billion metric tons of zombies.

After subtracting any fluids that will probably run out of the zombie after crushing, the average zombie almost certainly weighs rather less than fifty kilograms, I suspect. Therefore you need about twenty of them to a ton, requiring at least 3.2 trillion zombies to construct the causeway.

Moreover, the causeway will remain unstable for a very long period of time. Fluids will continue to be pressed out of the bulk of the zombies making up the causeway, causing extensive subsidence. Zombiequakes and zombielanches of up to billions of individual zombies may tumble down the sides of the causeway as settlement undermines the (eighty square mile) foundation layer of zombies.

While there are several ways you might more efficiently construct the causeway, IF you choose a roughly average portion of the Grand Canyon to cross, you're still going to need something on the order of one trillion zombies to pull it off even under the most favorable assumptions I can imagine (big zombies, and a causeway that 'dips' in the middle somewhat to save on building materials).

In other words, the Grand Canyon is REALLY BIG.

[Borgholio]

Simon...that analysis was beautiful.

[Cykeisme]

I second that.

It's both science and art.

[Simon_Jester]

Thank you both kindly.

I forgot to mention my other conclusion, come to think of it.

1) The Grand Canyon is REALLY BIG, and
2) Zombies may actually be literally the worst construction material ever.

[LastShadow]

First im glad this is more about the "could the zombies fill the canyon" as opposed to the show itself. Cause i have tried to watch that show, i have, and its awful (in my opinion) i rate it lower than the original zombie movies in terms of pure cheesiness.

While simon put it about as succinctly and definitively as you could, it just doesn't make logical sense, the sheer number of bodies that would be required to just make a pile to reach the top would be incredibly massive.

[biostem]

First im glad this is more about the "could the zombies fill the canyon" as opposed to the show itself. Cause i have tried to watch that show, i have, and its awful (in my opinion) i rate it lower than the original zombie movies in terms of pure cheesiness.

While simon put it about as succinctly and definitively as you could, it just doesn't make logical sense, the sheer number of bodies that would be required to just make a pile to reach the top would be incredibly massive.

Overall, Z Nation is definitely cheesy as all heck. I do find that they made a few decisions with the show that I do like, however:

1. I like the special types of zombies, (the irradiated ones that Murphy can't control, the plant zombies, and the semi-sentient ones that Murphy bites).
2. It's interesting that we know exactly where the zombie plague came from, and that there is a definite cure.
3. There does seem to be a fair amount of pragmatism with regard to how the zombies are handled - like 10K using his slingshot and some junk, when there's only a few zombies that are relatively close.


That being said, it is also wildly inconsistent with how things are handled. 10K can bullseye zombies in the head in rapid succession, with little effort in 1 scene, then waste several bullets in the next. The group will take very sensible precautions in 1 episode, then decide to beat up zombies unnecessarily "for the lulz" in the next. Then there's things like Murphy constantly moving from grumpy asshat to actually caring, from learning a lesson about caring about the group, to not giving an F the next...

[LastShadow]

First im glad this is more about the "could the zombies fill the canyon" as opposed to the show itself. Cause i have tried to watch that show, i have, and its awful (in my opinion) i rate it lower than the original zombie movies in terms of pure cheesiness.

While simon put it about as succinctly and definitively as you could, it just doesn't make logical sense, the sheer number of bodies that would be required to just make a pile to reach the top would be incredibly massive.

Overall, Z Nation is definitely cheesy as all heck. I do find that they made a few decisions with the show that I do like, however:

1. I like the special types of zombies, (the irradiated ones that Murphy can't control, the plant zombies, and the semi-sentient ones that Murphy bites).
2. It's interesting that we know exactly where the zombie plague came from, and that there is a definite cure.
3. There does seem to be a fair amount of pragmatism with regard to how the zombies are handled - like 10K using his slingshot and some junk, when there's only a few zombies that are relatively close.


That being said, it is also wildly inconsistent with how things are handled. 10K can bullseye zombies in the head in rapid succession, with little effort in 1 scene, then waste several bullets in the next. The group will take very sensible precautions in 1 episode, then decide to beat up zombies unnecessarily "for the lulz" in the next. Then there's things like Murphy constantly moving from grumpy asshat to actually caring, from learning a lesson about caring about the group, to not giving an F the next...

No doubt, i may give it another try, at some point, but the cheese factor is a horrible killer for me, sometimes i even have trouble watching ST: TNG, at least the earlier episodes due to the cheesiness. Forget TOS, i am nearly pained when watching it, i do, cause i am a fan, but its almost appealing at how corny it was. I guess ive become a bit of a snob when it comes to newer special effects.

And as far as Zombie stuff goes, Walking Dead has kind of poisoned the well in the same manner on that aspect, it has a higher standard in story telling, and visuals.

But as they say, to each their own.

[FaxModem1]

First im glad this is more about the "could the zombies fill the canyon" as opposed to the show itself. Cause i have tried to watch that show, i have, and its awful (in my opinion) i rate it lower than the original zombie movies in terms of pure cheesiness.

While simon put it about as succinctly and definitively as you could, it just doesn't make logical sense, the sheer number of bodies that would be required to just make a pile to reach the top would be incredibly massive.

Overall, Z Nation is definitely cheesy as all heck. I do find that they made a few decisions with the show that I do like, however:

1. I like the special types of zombies, (the irradiated ones that Murphy can't control, the plant zombies, and the semi-sentient ones that Murphy bites).
2. It's interesting that we know exactly where the zombie plague came from, and that there is a definite cure.
3. There does seem to be a fair amount of pragmatism with regard to how the zombies are handled - like 10K using his slingshot and some junk, when there's only a few zombies that are relatively close.


That being said, it is also wildly inconsistent with how things are handled. 10K can bullseye zombies in the head in rapid succession, with little effort in 1 scene, then waste several bullets in the next. The group will take very sensible precautions in 1 episode, then decide to beat up zombies unnecessarily "for the lulz" in the next. Then there's things like Murphy constantly moving from grumpy asshat to actually caring, from learning a lesson about caring about the group, to not giving an F the next...

No doubt, i may give it another try, at some point, but the cheese factor is a horrible killer for me, sometimes i even have trouble watching ST: TNG, at least the earlier episodes due to the cheesiness. Forget TOS, i am nearly pained when watching it, i do, cause i am a fan, but its almost appealing at how corny it was. I guess ive become a bit of a snob when it comes to newer special effects.

And as far as Zombie stuff goes, Walking Dead has kind of poisoned the well in the same manner on that aspect, it has a higher standard in story telling, and visuals.

But as they say, to each their own.

It's all a matter of taste. Z Nation is definitely an Asylum production, so you can tell its being made on the cheap. But it does explore things that Walking Dead never would. I doubt we'd ever see an episode about Indian casinos, people using zombies as a power source for a city, or people's beliefs in the middle of the apocalypse. On the flipside, you would also never see an episode in which there's a zombie museum with an undead George RR Martin still writing his books, or one with UFOs in Roswell. It's that kind of show.

[Simon_Jester]

First im glad this is more about the "could the zombies fill the canyon" as opposed to the show itself. Cause i have tried to watch that show, i have, and its awful (in my opinion) i rate it lower than the original zombie movies in terms of pure cheesiness.

While simon put it about as succinctly and definitively as you could, it just doesn't make logical sense, the sheer number of bodies that would be required to just make a pile to reach the top would be incredibly massive.

To be fair, people may not know just how big the canyon is, even if they've visited it, which a lot of people haven't. Ten miles wide and a mile deep is huge, and most people don't have an appreciation of how many of a small object it takes to fill a large volume- because reasoning correctly about the issue requires you to understand how cubing things impacts proportions.

[LastShadow]

First im glad this is more about the "could the zombies fill the canyon" as opposed to the show itself. Cause i have tried to watch that show, i have, and its awful (in my opinion) i rate it lower than the original zombie movies in terms of pure cheesiness.

While simon put it about as succinctly and definitively as you could, it just doesn't make logical sense, the sheer number of bodies that would be required to just make a pile to reach the top would be incredibly massive.

To be fair, people may not know just how big the canyon is, even if they've visited it, which a lot of people haven't. Ten miles wide and a mile deep is huge, and most people don't have an appreciation of how many of a small object it takes to fill a large volume- because reasoning correctly about the issue requires you to understand how cubing things impacts proportions.

I know ive never been, but ive walked over 10 miles, while not the same thing in a sense you get a feel for at the very least the distance, that and having been in rather tall buildings you can get a sense of height. Combine the too and you get a basic idea of how difficult the task is.

Though i have also watched a lot of stuff on the building of dirt causeways, and bridges, so i also have a sense of scale in that regards.

Then i have other examples, from watching other things, like Spartacus blood and sand theres a scene with a causeway built of bodies, over a rather small gap comparatively and that required hundreds of the dead, and World War Z where thousands upon thousandsof the infected piled on top of each other to get over the wall.

It may be only a few examples, but i get the jist of how many bodies something like that may require. Plus people make terrible building materials.

[LastShadow]

Overall, Z Nation is definitely cheesy as all heck. I do find that they made a few decisions with the show that I do like, however:

1. I like the special types of zombies, (the irradiated ones that Murphy can't control, the plant zombies, and the semi-sentient ones that Murphy bites).
2. It's interesting that we know exactly where the zombie plague came from, and that there is a definite cure.
3. There does seem to be a fair amount of pragmatism with regard to how the zombies are handled - like 10K using his slingshot and some junk, when there's only a few zombies that are relatively close.


That being said, it is also wildly inconsistent with how things are handled. 10K can bullseye zombies in the head in rapid succession, with little effort in 1 scene, then waste several bullets in the next. The group will take very sensible precautions in 1 episode, then decide to beat up zombies unnecessarily "for the lulz" in the next. Then there's things like Murphy constantly moving from grumpy asshat to actually caring, from learning a lesson about caring about the group, to not giving an F the next...

No doubt, i may give it another try, at some point, but the cheese factor is a horrible killer for me, sometimes i even have trouble watching ST: TNG, at least the earlier episodes due to the cheesiness. Forget TOS, i am nearly pained when watching it, i do, cause i am a fan, but its almost appealing at how corny it was. I guess ive become a bit of a snob when it comes to newer special effects.

And as far as Zombie stuff goes, Walking Dead has kind of poisoned the well in the same manner on that aspect, it has a higher standard in story telling, and visuals.

But as they say, to each their own.

It's all a matter of taste. Z Nation is definitely an Asylum production, so you can tell its being made on the cheap. But it does explore things that Walking Dead never would. I doubt we'd ever see an episode about Indian casinos, people using zombies as a power source for a city, or people's beliefs in the middle of the apocalypse. On the flipside, you would also never see an episode in which there's a zombie museum with an undead George RR Martin still writing his books, or one with UFOs in Roswell. It's that kind of show.

True it is all to taste. i didnt mean to knock your show, its just not for me is what i was getting at.

[FaxModem1]

No offense taken. I know it's crazy crap, but it's cheesy enjoyable crap.

[LastShadow]

No offense taken. I know it's crazy crap, but it's cheesy enjoyable crap.

Good i would hate to get on anyones bad side my second day one the forum.

[Ziggy Stardust]

And as far as Zombie stuff goes, Walking Dead has kind of poisoned the well in the same manner on that aspect, it has a higher standard in story telling, and visuals.

To be fair, while Walking Dead certainly has a higher budget and tighter production control, it's story telling is also full of incredible stupidity and bizarre logical discrepancies. I mean, I was shouting at my TV the last two episodes (won't give any spoilers) because of how lazy/idiotic the writing was. Basically, stupidity seems to go hand-in-hand with zombies (and horror in general), even when budgets are bloated.

(This is coming as a fan of both Walking Dead AND Z Nation, by the way.)

[Ralin]

I doubt we'd ever see an episode about Indian casinos,

Okay this is something that requires elaboration

[LastShadow]

And as far as Zombie stuff goes, Walking Dead has kind of poisoned the well in the same manner on that aspect, it has a higher standard in story telling, and visuals.

To be fair, while Walking Dead certainly has a higher budget and tighter production control, it's story telling is also full of incredible stupidity and bizarre logical discrepancies. I mean, I was shouting at my TV the last two episodes (won't give any spoilers) because of how lazy/idiotic the writing was. Basically, stupidity seems to go hand-in-hand with zombies (and horror in general), even when budgets are bloated.

(This is coming as a fan of both Walking Dead AND Z Nation, by the way.)

Yes dumb decisions go hand in hand with horror, you cant really get away with out it. Though i do like the self serving nature of some of the characters, and the balance of somewhat selfless acts of others.

And yeah that higher budget really helps dim the cheese, but it all comes down to a preference and sense of taste, some enjoy the cheese, some dont.

[FaxModem1]

I doubt we'd ever see an episode about Indian casinos,

Okay this is something that requires elaboration

Z Nation, unlike the Walking Dead, explores the subcultures of the USA, so at least two or three episodes a season investigates a subculture of the US. In season 1, they investigated Mormons, womans liberation, feminists, blue collar rednecks, military, church militants, etc. In season 2, they encountered a Native American reservation split into two groups, one in which consisted of traditionalists and were bound by traditions and their heritage, the other by what their generation had achieved by building casinos and buildings for their personal tribe. Other things they encountered were the Amish during a zombie apocalypse, a corporate retreat, and the headquarters of the Mexican Cartel.

Z nation likes to see what would happen if those who were on the fringe or in the minority before the apocalypse, and show how they are now thriving since normal society has been killed by zombies.