Monday, March 26, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[alietr]

I agree, once you actually do the research it's not close at all. But going from 125k in 1865 to 530k in 1916 (so I would guess it was somewhere around 200k-250k in 1880, and growing fast), I would call that close enough to be worth a guess when you're standing in the studio listening to the Think music. Considering the size of most other islands with population >1 million, HK is in a pretty solid 2nd place.

No argument from me; I certainly wouldn't have known Hong Kong's population back then. I went "Hmm ... Manhattan ... Hong Kong ... Singapore ... well, that sounds just about right for Manhattan since it's about 10x2 miles, plus I'm pretty confident it would have had a million people even back then. Manhattan it is."

[marpocky]

No argument from me; I certainly wouldn't have known Hong Kong's population back then. I went "Hmm ... Manhattan ... Hong Kong ... Singapore ... well, that sounds just about right for Manhattan since it's about 10x2 miles, plus I'm pretty confident it would have had a million people even back then. Manhattan it is."

I knew Singapore was much bigger than Hong Kong (Island), but Manhattan didn't enter my mind at all. I guess I always thought it was much bigger than that.

[seaborgium]

Related questions:

What's the smallest island with population over 10 million? 100 million?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ ... population

Looks like Java is the latter; only it and Honshu have over 100 million inhabitants, and Java's much more densely populated.

As far as smallest island with over 10 million, just going off the listed density again, I'm guessing Salsette, the Indian island on which Mumbai is located.

Well I wasn't asking out of an inability to do the research myself

I can remove the link and reword the post to make it seem as if I knew it, if you'd like.

[gloriaclemente]

There have been a shocking number of games in the last few weeks that were decided by bad wagering. It has been a distressing trend.

Which is why, starting with tomorrow's online test, they will be adding an all-or-nothing math question at the end.

Just kidding!

[reddpen]

It didn't do Margie any good, but when was the last time both DD's were in the 800 slots?

Depending how narrow your query was, either Francis Lansangan's first game (regular season) or the last TT quarterfinal (tournament).

Thanks again for the Coryat sheet, slam.

[cheezguyty]

Haven't seen the episode, but I will mention that there is a hidden clue in the FJ clue - 1880 is an awfully precise year - but then there was a census that year.

That would probably explain why the clue didn't give the exact year the population hit one million (most likely 1874, with the annexation of Morrisania, West Farms, and Westbridge) (scratch that, those towns were part of New York County but not the island of Manhattan; it was definitely 1875 then).

[econgator]

Haven't seen the episode, but I will mention that there is a hidden clue in the FJ clue - 1880 is an awfully precise year - but then there was a census that year.

That would probably explain why the clue didn't give the exact year the population hit one million (most likely 1874, with the annexation of Morrisania, West Farms, and Westbridge) (scratch that, those towns were part of New York County but not the island of Manhattan; it was definitely 1875 then).

Why "defintely" 1875?

[cheezguyty]

Haven't seen the episode, but I will mention that there is a hidden clue in the FJ clue - 1880 is an awfully precise year - but then there was a census that year.

That would probably explain why the clue didn't give the exact year the population hit one million (most likely 1874, with the annexation of Morrisania, West Farms, and Westbridge) (scratch that, those towns were part of New York County but not the island of Manhattan; it was definitely 1875 then).

Why "defintely" 1875?

The population of New York County on June 1, 1875, as given by the 1875 State Census, is 1,046,037. New York County is equivalent to the borough of Manhattan (and the entirety of New York City at that time), but it is not entirely coterminous with the island of Manhattan. The 23rd and 24th Wards are not on the island, so subtracting those gives us a total of 1,009,831. Randall's Island and Wards Island are part of the 12th Ward; I could not find an exact breakdown for that ward, but seeing as the current population of those two islands is just 1,386, I think 1,000 is a fair estimate. I don't know the number of soldiers stationed at Fort Jay on Governors Island, but safe to say it would be less than 8,000.

So we're left with a population on the island of Manhattan on June 1, 1875 of just over 1 million. The population from the 1870 U.S. Census for the entire county is listed as 942,292, for an average annual growth rate of about 20,750. Take away five-twelfths of that from our June 1875 number and you can see that the population at the beginning of the year had to be less than the million mark. (Okay, okay, I'll change that to "almost certainly 1875" ).