The ultimate speech audience is all eight billion people on earth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I saw an article by Katia Riddle and Rachel Treisman at NPR on November 15, 2022 titled There now are eight billion people on earth, according to a new U.N. report. Suppose we sat them all down in one place so they could listen to a speech.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on November 21, 2017 I blogged about Is a large audience one where the speaker needs a microphone? Is a small audience one where everyone can see a flipchart? As shown above, in that post I allotted an area of nine square feet per person. Eight billion people would occupy 72,000,000,000 square feet, or 2,582.64 square miles, or a square 50.82 miles on a side. That’s not as large area as one might guess, considering that the state of Delaware covers 2,488.72 square miles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In that previous post I had a table showing power of two, audience size, distance, and venue. The revised version shown above takes it to the limit – two to the 33rd power, which is over the world population of eight billion.  

 

If instead we had standing room only the answer even could be smaller. There is an article in the Washington Post by Ana Swanson on April 2, 2015 titled The entire world fits in New York City.

 

An image of the world and people came from Openclipart.