Where could we fit the entire world’s population?

Summary

---

Podcast Summary: More or Less — "Where could we fit the entire world’s population?"

Episode Date: August 10, 2013
Host: Ruth Alexander (BBC Radio 4)
Key Guests: Tim Harford, Ben Carter, David Salley

---

Episode Overview

This episode of More or Less tackles a fascinating statistical curiosity posed by a young listener: just how much space would humanity take up if we all stood shoulder to shoulder—and could we all fit into one city or region? Using lively experiments, calculations, and expert insights, the team explores the validity of viral claims about population density and discusses the practical (and impractical) realities of crowding the planet’s people together. The episode then segues to another numbers-related inquiry: how to measure a football manager's effectiveness, exploring whether changing managers truly improves results.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. How Tightly Can We Pack People Together?

• Listener’s Question: Jenny (age 12) wonders if the UK population could fit into London, and if all 7 billion people could fit anywhere together.
• Studio Experiment:
  • The team measures the available studio floor space (4 square meters) and invites in as many people as possible.
  • Result: 33 people squeezed in.
  • Takeaway: At that density, the UK's entire population (60 million) could indeed fit into London—"easily."
• Notable Quote:
  • Ruth Alexander [02:08]: “At that density, by our reckoning, the whole population of the UK...could indeed fit into London. Jenny, easily.”

2. World’s Population in One Place?

• Calculation:
  • If the same dense packing was applied, the entire world’s population (then 7 billion) could squeeze into Hong Kong.
• Caveat:
  • Ben Carter notes this leaves no room for farming, industry, or “living.”
  • Notable exchange:
    • Ben Carter [02:52]: “I imagine humankind would soon die out if we all moved to Hong Kong.”
    • Ruth Alexander [02:56]: “Well, let’s not do that, then.”

3. Debunking the "Texas Myth"

• Listener Debate: Jenny and her boss Carl argue over claims that everyone could fit—live and be fed—in Texas.
• Pop Culture Claim:
  • It’s said everyone could “comfortably” fit Texas at the population density of London or New York.
• Fact Check:
  • London Density: 5,000 people/km².
    • Only half the world (c. 3.4 billion) would fit in Texas.
    • Ruth Alexander [03:53]: “It’s about the size of Germany and Italy put together...But...only half the world could move to Texas if we lived like that.”
  • New York Density: Roughly double London’s.
    • Everyone could fit at this higher density.
    • Ben Carter [04:16]: “If we were all prepared to live like they do in New York...everyone on the planet would fit into Texas, no problem.”
• Reality Check:
  • But we’d still need somewhere for food production, waste, recreation, etc.
  • Ruth Alexander [04:26]: “We'd still need to find space elsewhere for the fields, landfill and so on.”

4. The Effectiveness of Football Managers

• Transition: The episode shifts to analyze whether changing football managers makes a difference to club performance.
• Study Cited:
  • Economist (Buster Weill) examined clubs in the Dutch league.
  • Finding: Both sacking a manager and not sacking (after poor results) led to a similar bounce-back—due to “regression to the mean.”
• Notable Quotes:
  • David Salley [06:13]: “That’s the regression to the mean...for whatever random factors [led to] a fall off in performance...inevitably their performance bounced back.”
  • Ruth Alexander [06:32]: “When managers were not forced to resign, performance improved more rapidly. He concluded that sacking a manager seems to be neither effective nor efficient...”
• Manager Impact:
  • While most club factors are structural, the manager does have a measurable effect (about 15% of overall performance, similar to CEOs in business).

5. Cricket vs. Baseball: Minutes of 'Action'

• A Fun Calculation:
  • Inspired by a Wall Street Journal article, the team compares “live action” minutes in baseball and cricket.
  • Baseball: Fans see only 18 minutes of action in a 3-hour game (6 minutes/hour).
  • Cricket: 1 hour and 2 minutes of action in a 6-hour day (10 minutes/hour).
  • Joke/Conclusion:
    • Ben Carter [08:54]: “Making baseball the dullest game in the world, apart from golf.”

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Ruth Alexander [02:08]:
  “At that density, by our reckoning, the whole population of the UK, which is about 60 million, could indeed fit into London. Jenny, easily.”
• Ben Carter [02:52]:
  “I imagine humankind would soon die out if we all moved to Hong Kong.”
• Ruth Alexander [03:53]:
  “It is so big. [Texas]’s about the size of Germany and Italy put together.”
• Ben Carter [04:16]:
  “If we were all prepared to live like they do in New York...everyone on the planet would fit into Texas, no problem.”
• David Salley [06:13]:
  “So a short term decline in performance is not a good reason to be firing your manager.”
• David Salley [06:54]:
  “Around 15% of the profitability of a company is determined by the quality of the CEO. We think something similar is going on at a football club...around that portion...is affected by the manager.”
• Ben Carter [08:54]:
  “Baseball delivers six minutes and cricket ten, making baseball the dullest game in the world apart from golf.”

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:32–02:46: Crowd-packing experiment and UK/London fit
• 02:46–03:37: World population in Hong Kong; myth-busting the “Texas” viral graphic
• 04:16–04:26: London vs. New York densities and Texas
• 05:18–08:01: Football manager stats and effect on team performance
• 08:05–08:54: Cricket vs. baseball “minutes of action” stats

---

Episode Tone & Style

The episode keeps a playful, engaging, and slightly irreverent tone, rooted in curiosity and delight in numbers. The hosts and guests are meticulous, but communicate their findings in a clear, approachable manner—mixing tongue-in-cheek humor with real statistical rigor. The listener questions spark both rigorous calculation and whimsical speculation, making statistics genuinely accessible and fun.

---

For More:
If you have a numerical claim you want verified, you can email the team at [e-mail].
Listen to more episodes at bbcworldservice.com/moreorless.

Transcript

[BBC Announcer]

Thank you for downloading from the BBC. For details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use, go to bbcworldservice.com podcasts

[Ruth Alexander]

hello and welcome to More or Less on the BBC World Service, the programme which really counts. I'm Ruth Alexander. This week we found out if you can measure the effectiveness of football managers. But first, here's an email to more or lessbc.co.uk the caught our eye, dear.

[Jenny (Listener)]

More or Less. I was watching a music festival on telly the other day and noticed how tightly packed the crowds were. If all the people in the UK stood shoulder to shoulder, would they fit into London? And how much space would all 7 billion people in the world take up? Looking forward to hearing from you, Jenny. Age 12.

[Ruth Alexander]

Well, to answer this, the key bit of information we need to know is exactly how dense a crowd at a big music festival is. Well, the thing is, with a concert crowd, it's difficult to get a reliable estimate on density, not least because people are much more tightly packed at the front, in the middle and the back. But here in More or Less land, we've done a highly scientific experiment which sort of gets round that density problem. We measured up the floor space in the studio that isn't taken up by the sound desk and there were about four square metres. And Tim Harford then invited in as many people as he could.

[Tim Harford]

Let's count them in.

[Ruth Alexander]

Where are we going?

[Tim Harford]

So we've got two in there? Yeah, let's come on in. Come on. Got 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 elders to yourself. 28, 29. Oh, no one's touching me. Squeeze in. Yes, thank you very much. Yeah, I did put the oven on this morning. Rod, you come in. We got 30, 31, 32. We got 32. We over the threshold. Any more room? Oh, yeah.

[Ruth Alexander]

Room for a couple more?

[Tim Harford]

Yeah, 133. We got one more in. Okay, 33 it is. Okay, thanks very much. Go on, Shoe shmy studio. Go on. Thank you. And you, Lewis, get out of here. You're welcome.

[Ruth Alexander]

Now, radio producers are quite a polite bunch, so I'm not sure they were as tightly packed as revellers at a music festival might be, but they were certainly standing very close to one another. And at that density, by our reckoning, the whole population of the UK, which is about 60 million, could indeed fit into London. Jenny, Easily. In fact, we could squeeze in about 13 billion people, almost twice the number of people on the entire planet. Now, you also raise the question of what size and area would all 7 billion people in the world cover. If we all came together and squeezed in close, well, by our reckoning, we could all squeeze into Hong Kong.

[Ben Carter]

Although that still wouldn't leave much room for farming or industry.

[Ruth Alexander]

By the magic of radio, here's Ben Carter.

[Ben Carter]

So I imagine humankind would soon die out if we all moved to Hong Kong.

[Ruth Alexander]

Well, let's not do that, then. But it brings us on to an argument between another listener called Jenny and her boss, Carl.

[Jenny's Boss Carl]

My boss and I have been having an argument about whether or not the world is overpopulated. He maintains that the entire population of the world could be housed and fed in an area merely the size of Texas. Having seen an infographic on the Internet, my position One, that's rubbish. Two, even if it wasn't rubbish, humans would probably like to have more than just food and shelter, and thus we'd need more than just Texas.

[Ruth Alexander]

The question here really is where could we all fit comfortably?

[Ben Carter]

And it's often said that everyone in the world could comfortably fit into an area the size of Texas at the population density of a city like London or New York.

[Ruth Alexander]

Now, I just want to put in a footnote here, which is about how big Texas is.

[Ben Carter]

It is big.

[Ruth Alexander]

It is so big. It's about the size of Germany and Italy put together. Just a little bit smaller than Zambia or Mozambique. But back to the question at hand. In London, There are roughly 5,000 people living per square kilometer, or 0.4 square miles, which means that only half the world could move to Texas if we lived like that, about 3.4 billion people.

[Ben Carter]

But if we were all prepared to live like they do in New York, which is twice as densely populated as London, everyone on the planet would fit into Texas, no problem.

[Ruth Alexander]

Of course, we'd still need to find space elsewhere for the fields, landfill and so on, which we think would be easier said than done. And then there's where we'd put the football pitches to think about too, because it's the return of the football season. Perhaps the most intriguing subplot for the English Premier League over the next nine months is how an array of newly installed managers will influence the performance performance of their clubs. All the teams which finished in the top three last season have a new man at the helm. David Moyes has the unenviable task of trying to replicate the success Sir Alex Ferguson had at Manchester United. Manuel Pellegrini will be trying to deliver the trophies that Manchester City craves. And Jose Mourinho is back with Chelsea. But how much effect does changing managers really have on a team's performance. We've been speaking to David Salley, co author of the football statistics book the Numbers Game.

[David Salley]

There was a study by an economist in the Dutch league that looked at manager sackings and what he found was a serious decline in form that was followed by the sacking of a manager in the next four or five matches that followed. The club returned and improved its performance over those matches. He then had a very clever idea of saying, can I find some clubs that also had a decline in performance sometime over one of the 10 seasons that he looked at? And he found a set of those clubs that did not fire the manager. And what he found was the exact same pattern where the decline in performance was followed by an immediate uptick.

[Ruth Alexander]

What this economist Buster Whale found at play here was a statistical phenomenon called regression to the mean. Slumps in performance were just extreme results due to randomness. The teams would soon return to their average performance with or without a new manager.

[David Salley]

That's the regression to the mean that was the club for whatever random factors had a fall off in performance. It could have been injury, it could have been some difficult opponents, but inevitably their performance bounced back. And so a short term decline in performance is not a good reason to be firing your manager.

[Ruth Alexander]

In fact, Buster Weil found that when managers were not forced to resign, performance improved more rapidly. He concluded that sacking a manager seems to be neither effective nor efficient in terms of improving team performance. But this isn't to say that managers have no influence on a team's fortunes. David Salley argues, he says, that you can measure the manager effect.

[David Salley]

A similar question exists in the business literature of how important a chief executive officer is to the running of a company. And that literature has come to the conclusion that the structural factors in a business, what kind of industry it's in, how long it's been in the business and so on, are much more important than the CEO, him or herself. But of the things that can change in the short run and the medium run, the CEO is among the most important, if not the most important factor. And a number has come out of that literature. Around 15% of the profitability of a company is determined by the quality of the CEO. We think something similar is going on at a football club where around that portion of the performance of a club, its position on the overall table, its points that it wins per match, is affected by the manager. While the things that are set in stone at a club like United that has a great stadium, a great tradition, all the facilities you would want are very fixed in the long run and will ensure its success, but the performance of the manager in this case Ferguson moving to Moyes will be an important factor.

[Ruth Alexander]

David Salley and Ben, just before we go, you've got one more thing for us.

[Ben Carter]

That's right after a recent Wall Street Journal article calculated that baseball fans only get to see 18 minutes of action during the course of a game that lasts on average 3 hours and 3 minutes, we thought we'd see how much action cricket fans get to see over the course of a six hour day. Factoring in times for bowlers run ups, deliveries and runs off the bat, we came up with one hour and two minutes of action. Roughly two thirds of that is taken up by bowlers running into bowl. This takes on average five seconds for each delivery and the rest of the time is taken up by the ball running over the outfield as batsmen hit runs and boundaries. So in terms of minutes of action per hour, baseball delivers six minutes and cricket 10, making baseball the dullest game in the world apart from golf.

[Ruth Alexander]

Thanks Ben. If there are any numbers you'd like us to take a closer look at, do email us. Our address is more or lessbc.co.uk and if you like a freebie, why not subscribe to the download of our program at our website bbcworldservice.com More or less

[BBC Announcer]

There are dozens of different podcasts now available from the BBC, including news, documentaries, science, business, arts and sport. For details of them all go to bbcworldservice.com podcasts.