A few comments here say humans are reconstituted preexisting matter. But aren't there added inputs from sunlight and photosynthesis over millions of years?<p>There's probably not a <i>net</i> gain, as a system, because we're also radiating heat out, burning fossil fuels, etc., but the earth isn't a closed system, is it?<p>If not for the constant influx of sunlight, we'd have to rely on core heat (tube worms and chemoautotrophy) to fuel metabolism, which most species don't do. It's photosynthesis of algae, plants, and cyanobacteria and subsequent predation that allows most life, including us, to flourish, no? And that requires a constant external input of sunlight?
Earth mass: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_mass" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_mass</a> :<p>> <i>An Earth mass (denoted as
M_E or
M⊕ ( M_{\oplus } ), where 🜨 is the standard astronomical symbol for Earth), is a unit of mass equal to the mass of the planet Earth. The current best estimate for the mass of Earth is M🜨 = 5.9722×10^24 kg, with a relative uncertainty of 10^−4. It is equivalent to an average density of 5515 kg/m3.</i><p>Average mass of a human: 50-75kg, depending on whether it's babies or not<p>Population of Earth: 8.1x10e9<p>Total mass of humans: ~ 400-600 x 10e9<p>Proportion of Earth's mass composed of live humans: 500e9 / 5.9e24 = 8.4e-14 = 0.00000000000084 %<p>According to the video series on "How the pyramids were built" at <a href="https://thepump.org/" rel="nofollow">https://thepump.org/</a> by The Pharaoh's Pump Society, the later pyramids had a pool of water at the topmost layer of construction such that they could place and set water-tight blocks of carved stone using a crane barge that everybody walked to the side of to lift.
The earth loses about 100,000 tons/year via hydrogen and helium escaping. The earth gains about 50,000 tons per year via space dust, etc.<p>Since temperature = energy, e=mc^2, therefore temperature = mass, the earth gains 160 tons/year due to global warming.<p>So Earth's mass and gravity is therefore decreasing over time. If you assume global warming is directly proportional to population, we'll need ~2.5 trillion people before we can start increasing gravity.
No. Lifeforms are merely the re-arrangement of molecules which are already present. And it would be a negligible amount of matter compared to the mass of the Earth anyway, even if it was magically-introduced matter.
Not significantly. Humans are made up of matter already available at the earth's surface, so population increase alone effects neither the amount nor distribution of the earth's mass.<p>Technological civilization might at some point meaningfully shift the distribution of mass, but I don't think it has up to this point.