Talk:3079: Air Fact

average person eats 3 spiders a year" factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted” 172.68.7.184 15:19, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

🔥🔥🔥🔥 Broseph (talk) 15:26, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

^{[citation needed]}172.68.174.138 15:52, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

This is one of those factoids like "Over 5% of the population has an above average number of fingers."172.68.245.136 16:16, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

That factoid sounds true. Assuming there are more people who have fewer than ten fingers than those who have extra fingers (some people have whole hands missing, but extra digits to my knowledge normally only come in ones and twos), then the average is slightly less than ten, and the ten-fingered vast majority of people have an above-average number of fingers, certainly more than 5% of the population. 141.101.98.164 19:10, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

I have more than the average number of legs (for a human), as I famously insisted once in my mathematics class. And still do. 162.158.74.94 22:34, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't really get the way the title text is written. Why is "so many ants" assumed to be a small number, like the number of spiders? Barmar (talk) 17:47, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

If the factoid in the comic were true, the fact that the average person has a tidal volume of about half a litre, and takes between 12-20 breaths per minute means that they breathe in and out about 10 cubic metres per day. That’s over 100,000 ants. The fact that you are talking about “per year” implies that the rate is a reasonable number per year, not over 36 million. It’s like comparing the speed of continents to the speed of a car. 172.68.0.190 20:03, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Because that's part of the joke. 172.71.241.123 08:49, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

The term "microscopic ants" supposedly refers to viruses and other microorganisms, not actual tiny ants. The actual concentration of airborne germs is pretty much in that ballpark, so it's not about sampling bias, it's about framing. 162.158.103.36 17:00, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

There isn't even such a thing as a "microscopic ant". The smallest ant species is 0.8mm long. That's tiny, but easily visible without aid. And if there were 10,000 of them in a cubic meter of air, you'd notice. It would be like walking through a thick swarm of gnats. Barmar (talk) 17:47, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Speaking for myself, I don't understand what would be difficult about taking air samples. Currently the article claims it's sampling bias, but why should that be anymore difficult with air than with e.g. soil?172.69.67.22 18:14, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Tried to address this ... 172.71.146.123 19:23, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

It's difficult to take an exact volume of air and analyze it's content. The less you care about how close to exact volume you took, the easier it is. -- Hkmaly (talk) 05:07, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

There's nothing difficult about taking air samples - I do it myself about every 3-5 seconds. More, when exercising. 172.71.178.157 08:53, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Microscopic wasps, on the other hand: surprisingly commonplace. Many species are too small to be seen with the naked eye, and if Megan took her samples near hedgerows in summer, there could have been some microscopic wasps in every sample cubic metre. Probably a few orders of magnitude less than 10,000. 141.101.98.219 19:25, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

"Many species are too small to be seen with the naked eye" - Wikipedia claims that fairy wasps are the smallest flying insect at 0.15mm, which is large enough to see if you get close enough. 172.68.26.39 22:55, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't see any evidence Megan is referring to microbes as microscopic ants. As a microbiologist, if she meant a bacterium, etc. it seems like she would have just said so, especially since the ants claim is made again in the title text. She's preying on Cueball's gullibility and unfamiliarity with the subject for her own amusement, to convince him the air is overrun with literal microscopic ants which don't exist and wouldn't be in the air if they did. Likewise the paragraph about extrapolation errors seems unnecessary as well. She's not making a sampling error - she's just making the whole thing up. Just my take. 172.69.17.211 22:06, 21 April 2025 (UTC)Pat

This comic is dumb and makes no sense. 172.70.230.37 (talk) 01:34, 22 April 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Did you write 'comic' when you meant 'comment'?172.71.178.157 08:53, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Literally nobody in this talk page understands the joke. Randall isn't going to notice you just because you'll defend any slop he puts out. 172.68.55.48 10:38, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Except that's literally untrue. And your second sentence has nothing to do with anything.172.70.86.133 13:31, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

This is an interesting arguement 162.158.137.163 (talk) 22 April 2025 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)