Trantor's Population Density

Continuing with yesterday's post on population density in The Caves of Steel, consider the description of Trantor provided by the Encyclopedia Galactica excerpt that opens section three of "The Psychohistorians", where we learn that "Its urbanizattion, progressing steadily, had finally reached the ultimate. All the land surface of Trantorm, 75,000,000 square miles in extent, was a single city. The population, at its height, was well in excess of forty billions." Say well in excess of forty billion means 45 billion. 45 billion people spread over 75 million square miles is only 600 people per square mile:

That'd put the population density of Trantor at a bit less than what you see in the present-day United Kingdom. The UK is, to be sure, a densely populated country. But as you can see above, it's hardly a single giant city stretching from sea to sea. And yet Jerril explains to Gaal Dornick that not only is the entire surface (save 100 square miles reserved for the imperial palace) incorporated into a city that's so dense Trantorians go years without stepping outside, but a long elevator ride only took them 500 feet into the air. How?

Most of the time it was just getting up to ground level. Trantor is tunneled over a mile down. It's like an iceberg. Nine-tenths of it is out of sight. It even works itself out a few miles into the sub-ocean soil at the shorelines.

For reference, the Empire State Building is less than 0.30 miles tall, so the total square footage you could get from a mile-deep tunnel covering 75,000,000 square miles of surface area would be mind-boggling and you could fit way, way, way more than 45 billion people there. Alternatively, you could fit the 45 billion into a relatively small proportion of the planet and use some of the surface area for agriculture, thus reducing the capital's strategic vulnerability to attacks on its supply fleet.

Photo by Flickr user Catherine Trigg used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

It's also possible that Asimov was using the British version of billion (one million million).

That would increase the population density 1000 fold.

Posted by Jinchi | November 30, 2007 9:52 AM

Way to tell off that long dead science fiction writer!

Asimov was a smart guy, but maybe saying that a planet had 100B or 1000B people was just to far beyond what could be accepted by him, or his editors, or his readers at the time. If he had said that there were a trillion people living on Trantor, it might have simple seemed like a ridiculous, silly number in the 40s, even if the implications of what he wrote were true. So even though it was less "realistic," 45 billion might have just seemed more plausible on a gut level.

Or maybe Asimov was just too busy pounding out manuscripts for a penny a word to work through the implications...

Posted by RWB | November 30, 2007 10:06 AM

The people of Great Britain look a lot like sheep.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | November 30, 2007 10:16 AM

Alternatively, you could fit the 45 billion into a relatively small proportion of the planet and use some of the surface area for agriculture, thus reducing the capital's strategic vulnerability to attacks on its supply fleet.

Given that later imperial policy consists of little more than protecting this "delicate jugular vein" of Trantor, I do believe you've hit upon a way to keep the Galactic Empire from falling, Mr. Yglesias. Now the question is, do we want to keep it from falling? After its initial religious flummery, the Foundation primarily expands via trade, and barring a brief interlude, is a representative democracy at home and non-authoritarian abroad. Add in the superior pyschological insights of the eventual ruling class of the Second Foundation, and the result is "new and greater empire." So perhaps you don't want to work so hard to keep the First Empire, largely driven by military subjugation, in place.

Posted by mds | November 30, 2007 10:17 AM

Add in the superior pyschological insights of the eventual ruling class of the Second Foundation, and the result is "new and greater empire." So perhaps you don't want to work so hard to keep the First Empire, largely driven by military subjugation, in place.

And then there's something something something Gaia, right? I can't remember the later books in the series properly.

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | November 30, 2007 10:19 AM

Way to tell off that long dead science fiction writer!

Maybe I'm not so much "telling him off" than using his well-known works to illustrate some points about land use policy.

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | November 30, 2007 10:20 AM

Asimov was certainly capable of doing population math. He wrote one short essay that estimated the maximum possible population capacity of the Solar System, if you chopped all the planets into asteroids and crammed them full of people. The answer was something like 6 quadrillion.

It's likely he didn't worry as much about the figures in a sci-fi story.

Alternately, we're not taking into account that 99% of the volume of Trantor is taken up storing old Ishtar betamax tapes, discarded Beanie Babies, and, most importantly, the Imperial porn collection.

Posted by Scott de B. | November 30, 2007 10:30 AM

"Maybe I'm not so much "telling him off" than using his well-known works to illustrate some points about land use policy."

Oh, so I take it you're opposed to Clinton's proposal to crowd the population of the U.S. into a giant subterranean steel cave? Seemed like such a good idea in the debate. What about Obama's "giant bubble cities at the bottom of the sea?" idea? Personally, I like Richardson's Dyson Sphere proposal, but voting for him would be a waste...

Posted by dan | November 30, 2007 10:33 AM

To defend Asimov here, he was pretty young when he wrote the first three Foundation books. They're full of things like a perfectly healthy but aged Hari Sheldon predicting he'll be soon dead from an illness with no symptoms, a situation more likely taken from the Count of Monte Christo than from any actual medical condition. What I will say in Asimov's defense is that the Foundation books enabled me to understand Communism and the fanatic loyalty it inspired in some people. I would recommend everyone read the Foundation series along with "doc" Smith's famous Lensmen series -- each in its own way explains the 20th century.

Posted by Diana | November 30, 2007 10:35 AM

An arresting fact is that the Netherlands has the same population density as Kansas City. The US really is much more space-hungry than Europe...

Posted by ajay | November 30, 2007 10:36 AM

> Now the question is, do we want to keep it
> from falling?

That was before George W. Bush arrived and started bombing Trantor in order to give it freedom.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | November 30, 2007 10:37 AM

I like Richardson's Dyson Sphere proposal, but voting for him would be a waste...

A Dyson Sphere would be a waste of taxpayer dollars, since a ring-shaped structure with a width equal to the Earth's diameter could provide plenty of lebensraum for generations to come. The only real concern then would be the Covenantofascist menace.

Posted by James Gary | November 30, 2007 10:45 AM

And then of course there are Foundation's coal-powered spaceships...

Posted by lemuel pitkin | November 30, 2007 10:45 AM

Perhaps a significant portion of Trantor is devoted to cubic miles of machinery, generating its atmosphere, foodstuffs, etc.

(How *did* Asimov explain the disappearance of the positronic-brained robots? I forgets.)

Posted by Anderson | November 30, 2007 11:04 AM

*sob*
LEAVE SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS ALONE!!!!!!!!!
*sob*
LEAVE THEM ALONE RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!
*sob*

Seriously dude,
You are so totally ruining my memories of these books. Just play along like the rest of us.

Posted by r4d20 | November 30, 2007 11:06 AM

Matt's intense interest in this incredibly dorky topic tells me that this post came over coffee shop wifi.

May I recommend Abraxas (near the Dam Square) and the White Widow spliff? That and a tasty kaffee verkehrt is a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.

Posted by Philly | November 30, 2007 11:16 AM

Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain
And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet
When the wind comes right behind the rain.
Oklahoma,
Ev'ry night my honey lamb and I
Sit alone and talk and watch a hawk
Makin' lazy circles in the sky.
We know we belong to the land
And the land we belong to is grand!
And when we say
Yeeow! Ayipioeeay!
We're only sayin'
You're doin' fine,
Oklahoma!
Oklahoma O.K.

I think this ought to refute you density-geeks.

Posted by cw | November 30, 2007 11:21 AM

Well Matt, you certainly have these writers of speculative fiction dead to rights. I'm buying the DVD of Soylent Green to see if I can catch them in any similar examples of mathematical legerdemain. H.G. Wells and Jules Verne had better look to their laurels. I've a sneaking suspicion that the anti-gravity properties of Cavourite were just so much science fiction.

Posted by primigenius | November 30, 2007 11:22 AM

cw,

Do you know someplace where I can get me a surrey with a fringe on the top?

Posted by r4d20 | November 30, 2007 11:23 AM

r$d20

Head west, young man. Head west.

Posted by cw | November 30, 2007 11:33 AM

Since Matthew is in Amsterdam, he might want to read Poul Anderson's "Polesotechnic League" future history -- the best science fiction ever written. A takeoff on the Hanseatic League, it resounds with arguments for the merits of entrepreneurs and why government is the implacable enemy of intelligent life forms.

Nicholas van Rijn is a particularly great character --
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_van_Rijn
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poul_Anderson#Technic_History

I've wondered if Poul Anderson's series (published in the 1960s) inspired some of Silicon Valley's entrepreneurs.

As I noted earlier, Poul Anderson made the point that human societies are determined by their economic systems -- that densely populated, highly complex urban complexes inevitably fall into oppressive, authoritarian government -- into collectivism. People always choose security over freedom -- order over civil rights -- when the prospect of starving or danger is real. Which is why expecting democratic revolutions to succeed in China is unrealistic.

Posted by Don Williams | November 30, 2007 11:47 AM

It's also why peole like Matt are so keen on shoehorning us all into cities, whether we want to live there or not. Makes victory for his prefered politics a given. ;)

Posted by Brett Bellmore | November 30, 2007 12:03 PM

Once again, Don's right. I mean, look at how the people of Eastern Europe are now bowing and scraping to their Communist..., oh, wait...

And look at how desley-populated South Korea, with its super-hostile neighbor to the north, has continued to..., um, wait...

Posted by Shawn | November 30, 2007 12:09 PM

I've spent too much of my life worried that I am the only person who dwells on the population density of Trantor. I love you all.

Posted by WIlbur | November 30, 2007 12:13 PM

Yup, nothing like a small-town mayor, his chief of police, and the county judge, backed up by hundreds of helpful spying eyes among the neighbors, to nurture freedom and openness to diversity and new ideas. And oh yeah: when you try to call your big-city civil rights lawyer from the county jail the technician at the telephone exchange (the mayor's cousin) reroutes your call to the local KKK chapter office.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | November 30, 2007 12:31 PM

"Poul Anderson made the point that human societies are determined by their economic systems -- that densely populated, highly complex urban complexes inevitably fall into oppressive, authoritarian government -- into collectivism"

I haven't read the Anderson books, but if they're based on the Hanseatic League, while the League itself didn't last infinitely long, the free cities composing it often lasted for many hundreds of years (Lubeck, the chief city of the Hanse, was an independent republic for over 600 years). Venice was an independent republic for nearly 1,000 years. Now, it's true that the medieval / Renaiisance city-state were typically oligarchic, not democratic - but they were not generally particularly oppressive or authoritarian (at least compared to the competing royal / princely states).

Posted by burritoboy | November 30, 2007 12:34 PM

Crank-

Noble effort. But rememebr, Don Williams' says that "densely populated, highly complex urban complexes inevitably fall into oppressive, authoritarian government" in reference to The Netherlands. I mean, at this point sarcasm just fails.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | November 30, 2007 12:35 PM

Re "look at how the people of Eastern Europe are now bowing and scraping to their Communist..., oh, wait...And look at how desley-populated South Korea "
----------
If someone is being stalked by a wolf, they should not feel secure just because a tiger shows up and fights the wolf. To the contrary.

As the US government tightens it's grip over the entire globe in the next century , all of mankind will fall under an oppressive, confining regime similar to the dynasties of China that destroyed all progress and halted the march of knowledge and progress.

Scientific progress will die --because no one will pay for it. The government won't -- lacking a military competitor, it will have no need. Industry won't -- because any profits from discovery will be seized by the imperial tax collectors. Plus scientists will leave the field --tired of background investigations, security regulations, and having to ask "May I" to carry out experiments or to access "dangerous knowledge".

Poul Anderson explained why: Densely populated, highly complex societies DEMAND enormous capital investments.

But plutocrats won't RISK capital -- they put it up only when the government gives strong assurances that it can tightly CONTROL the environment -- that there is NO risk.

Chevron will drill oil wells in Iraq or the Caspian Sea ,for example, only if its CEOs are assured that no one will blow them up or tax the profits. Well, aside from the small, predefined and fixed cut given to the local puppets.

Since oil is needed to keep the lights on, to keep the heat on, and to deliver food in New York City, then the US government will deliver those assurances and will take measures to carry them out.

It's not the "free enterprise" of small businessmen -- it's "Dick Cheney Enterprise".

Posted by Don Williams | November 30, 2007 12:35 PM

Asimov was certainly capable of doing population math. He wrote one short essay that estimated the maximum possible population capacity of the Solar System, if you chopped all the planets into asteroids and crammed them full of people. The answer was something like 6 quadrillion.

I was mostly okay with building a taller residential tower at 14th and U, but now I'm concerned about the slippery slope.

Posted by JB | November 30, 2007 12:39 PM

Re pitkin's comment "in reference to The Netherlands. I mean, at this point sarcasm just fails."
----------
If not for the strong, active intervention of the New World over the past decades, the populations western Europe would still be goosestepping, spying on each other, and rounding up Jews to be shipped to ovens.

Whether they saluted with "Heil Hitler" or "Heil Comrade Stalin" would be a nicety.

Posted by Don Williams | November 30, 2007 12:42 PM

Anyone with delusions re the Dutch as freedom fighters might try reading about the experiences of the British Special Operations Executive with Dutch resistance during WWII.

The Nazis thought that the "Englandspiel" -- using Dutch agents to call up SOE in London on the shortwave in order to have money, munitions and agents parachuted into the Nazis' waiting arms
-- was a particularly hilarious touch.

Posted by Don Williams | November 30, 2007 12:54 PM

Remember kids, please don't feed the trolls. The discussions here are usually informed and educated.

Posted by freddiemac | November 30, 2007 12:56 PM

i dont get it.

you really get your kicks out of "fact checking" science-fiction novels???

um...you do know that a large part of science fiction is fiction, right?

Posted by freaktown | November 30, 2007 1:09 PM

What the developers need to do is first propose building a 75 million square mile subterrainian megalopolis centered at 14th and U, then settle on their residential tower as a compromise.

Posted by Njorl | November 30, 2007 1:13 PM

"you really get your kicks out of "fact checking" science-fiction novels???"

This is just one layer in a multi-layer scheme to convince everyone to move to a cubicle in a megaglopolis.

Step one: point out that asimov's trantor could actually hold many billions more and still not feel crowded.

Step two: reveal that steel caves are actually favored amoung the young hip in europe: "hey Beo Urduh lives in a steel cave, and have you seen how he dresses?"

Posted by cw | November 30, 2007 1:17 PM

... Step three: Profit!

Posted by lemuel pitkin | November 30, 2007 1:31 PM

"It's also possible that Asimov was using the British version of billion (one million million).

That would increase the population density 1000 fold."-Posted by Jinchi

Those numbers would work out to something like what Asimov portrays, however, he wasn't English. He was born in Russia, and emigrated at age 3 to the US. He was a bit eccentric, so I suppose he might have decided that the English usage was superior and adopted it, but that's unlikely. I would not assume it was so unless there was supporting evidence.

Posted by Njorl | November 30, 2007 1:43 PM

... Step three: Profit!

That's right! Has Matt divulged all his poential conflict of interests here? Is it only a coincidence that the world largest manufacture of youth-friendly, guano-proof head gear, BaatKapKo, is headquartered in... DIE NEDERLANDS!

Posted by CW | November 30, 2007 1:55 PM

Isaac Asimov was, quite simply, a shitty, shitty writer. The Foundation epic sucks, I Robot sucks, everything he wrote sucks. I am a sci fi fan, but I haven't been able to stand anything of his since I was around 15.

Posted by Andrew | November 30, 2007 2:19 PM

I was just thinking that surely there's somebody in the area who might be inspired to kick your ass for writing this post, but sadly such a person would be unlikely to have read it.

Posted by godoggo | November 30, 2007 2:25 PM

Mr. Williams raises an excellent point about the inability of the tightly-knit, big-government Dutch to resist the Nazis. Fortunately, various doughty independently-wealthy yeomen of the primarily small-scale agrarian United States, acting through purely voluntary associations, crossed the Atlantic in private yachts and liberated the decadent socialists from under the Nazi boot, even though they didn't deserve it.

Posted by mds | November 30, 2007 2:34 PM

And how did those Dutch ingrates thank us for this courageous act of small 'r' republicanism? By promptly turning around and surrending their newfound freedom to those hops-laden dictators at Heineken!

Pearls before swine, I tell ya.

Posted by Shawn | November 30, 2007 2:47 PM

Andrew:

Please preface your remarks with "In my opinion...". Asimov is God to many of us Sci-fi fans.

Your penchant for repeated words proves you're not the best judge of writers.

Posted by Doubting Thomas | November 30, 2007 2:53 PM

Matt,

Sorry to correct you, but in your post you cite The Caves of Steel, when I think you were really referring to Foundation?

Also, for a great speculative fiction book with a sociological flair, check out James Bliss Cities in Flight. The omnibus edition I got has a great essay on the book and how its' timeline fits into historical sociological models.

Josh

P.S. - Congrats on being selected as one of Josh Marshall's (and TPM)'s Mucktackular contest judges!

Posted by Josh | November 30, 2007 3:28 PM

I suspect the Golden Age of Science Fiction authors like Asimov and Heinlein (who had a similar problem low-balling future world populations) helped create an audience of nerds like us who would worry about stuff like this. Before hard sci-fi emerged in the late 1930s, it was mostly "Ray Guns! Rocket Ships! Tentacles!" and nobody worried much about the numbers. Heinlein famously calculated some of the numbers for the orbit a spaceship would follow going to Mars, which helped generate an appetite for more quantitatively correct sci-fi. But, operating without computers, it was a lot of work for authors whose economic model was based on churning out a lot of prose. So, they winged it a lot.

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 30, 2007 3:50 PM

Then there's the old meme that if we all lived at the density of Singapore the entire population could live in a single city the size of North and South Dakota. Well, the population's evidently grown since then -- Singapore's allegedly 32,000/sq.mile, the population's allegedly around 6.6 billion so you'd have to annex Kansas.

On the other hand, if my randomly-Googled source is right, if the whole world lived at the population density of Hong Kong (270,750/sq.mile!!!) we'd almost all fit in West Virginia!

The irony being that even if we did then a) West Virginia would have roughly 9,500 seats in Congress but b) only two Senators (though Robert Byrd would be thrilled.) Oh, and c) Tom Tancredo would be out of work. Oh, and d) Peabody coal seems to already be working on the parking lot in West Virginia so it might be a good choice.

figleaf

Posted by figleaf | November 30, 2007 3:56 PM

So, they winged it a lot.

Oh, come now. Both E.E. Smith and Asimov, for example, surely knew how to use a slide rule; after all, they both had protagonists use them for calculations. And Heinlein, as you note, could do the math if he wished, though perhaps not by doing the fourth-order approximations for an orbital insertion trajectory in his head, as was the case in Space Cadet.

Of course, I guess all of this actually proves that they couldn't even conceive of a hand-held electronic calculator, let alone pick one up. Which, er, was basically your point. Hey, look over there, FTL drives!

Posted by mds | November 30, 2007 3:59 PM

The irony being that even if we did then a) West Virginia would have roughly 9,500 seats in Congress but b) only two Senators (though Robert Byrd would be thrilled.)

And everybody would complain about carpet-bagging West Virginians establishing residency in other states just so they could vote themselves into the US Senate in 1-0 landslides.

Posted by JB | November 30, 2007 4:09 PM

Since we're veering OT: I sympathize somewhat with the anti-Asimov contingent. Asimov's (and other Golden Agers') nerdiness always put me off a little.

Fortunately, there was J.G. Ballard. "The Concentration City" and "Billennium" are great "dense population" SF stories. They also have many characteristics of "good writing"--e.g., a developed prose style and a sense of mood--which are notably missing in Asimov's fiction.

Posted by James Gary | November 30, 2007 5:39 PM

"...various doughty independently-wealthy yeomen of the primarily small-scale agrarian United States..."

The rest of you can go home now -- mds just won the thread. Fuck it, he won the internets.

Posted by skiddie | November 30, 2007 5:41 PM

Asimov did conceive of the handheld personal calculator. One appears in story "The Feeling of Power" in 1958. More people may recall Hari Seldon using some kind of handheld calculator near the beginning of Foundation.

Posted by matt wilbert | November 30, 2007 5:57 PM

> Asimov did conceive of the handheld personal
> calculator. One appears in story "The Feeling of
> Power" in 1958. More people may recall Hari Seldon
> using some kind of handheld calculator near the
> beginning of Foundation.

Yes, but as Asimov himself pointed out it was only a few years later in 1965 that he wrote a detailed history and usage guide for... the slide rule. Hand-holdable electronic calculators were already being manufactured in Russia at that time, although trig functions wouldn't come until 1973.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | November 30, 2007 6:12 PM

1) Re mds's comment "Fortunately, various doughty independently-wealthy yeomen of the primarily small-scale agrarian United States "
----------
To the best of my knowledge, Eric Prince and Blackwater Inc of North Carolina were not involved in WWII --but I'm willing to be corrected.

2) Re "crossed the Atlantic in private yachts"
------------
Er, no. The privateers raided British commerce during the Revolutionary War, not German commerce during WWII.
But Congress dropped the approach -- too cost effective, hence not a big enough pork barrel.
Google "Trent Lott" and "Northrop Grumman" and
"Pascagoula shipyard". Or "John Warner" and "Norfolk Shipyard". Or "Olympia Snowe" and "Bath IronWorks".

Posted by Don Williams | November 30, 2007 6:20 PM

Come to think of it, Congress could have given Eric Prince "Letters of Marque and Reprisal" to prosecute the "war on terror" -- payment being in the form of 70 percent of any Bin Laden or Al Qaeda assets that Blackwater could seize via the ordinary means (extortion, kidnapping,etc). Plus bounties paid by the insurance companies.

After all, if you can't turn a profit from waging a war, you probably shouldn't be waging it.

In this way, our defense budget could be $100 Billion /year instead of $900 Billion/year and we could use the resulting $800 Billion to fund Social Security and provide universal Healthcare to all US citizens.

Why would mds object to this --does he hate poor people?

Posted by Don Williams | November 30, 2007 6:46 PM

Perhaps a significant portion of Trantor is devoted to cubic miles of machinery, generating its atmosphere, foodstuffs, etc.

(How *did* Asimov explain the disappearance of the positronic-brained robots? I forgets.)

Posted by Anderson

I don't remember when the suggestion first appeared, but Asimov decided that having positronic robots would make stories about humans settling new planets boring, so he had the humans choose to abandon robots as their use was basically leading to humans not having much of a reason to live anymore.

In the later Foundation books (after the original trilogy) one of the last robots, first met in the Caves of Steel I think, actually allowed a terrorist to inject the Earth with some sort of radiation weapon so that it would force humanity to leave their ancestral home and colonize outward.

Posted by El Cid | November 30, 2007 7:05 PM

I seem to remember Asimov describing large sections of Trantor as being very unpopulated in many of his Foundation novels, despite the planetary conurbation. He would talk about the main character wandering pathways which had virtually no one in them. Trantor did not possess its peak population during the period of the novels, so using the 45 billion number is bogus. Asimov was detailing a period when the Empire was in severe decline, which extended even to the capital planet. Isn't the the whole reason for creating the Foundation in the first place?

And, what is it with folks trashing The Netherlands and the Dutch? The Dutch were not expecting to have to fight WW2, since they had sat out WW1 after all. I knew a Dutch naval officer thirty years ago who had spent six years as a submarine commander in the East Indies (now Indonesia) without ever having the chance to return home. He fought against the Japanese bravely during the last four years of that war and didn't complain about his experience. He thought war was a waste, but what rational person wouldn't. As for collaborating with fascists, we have our own quislings here in the US today and see them regularly on TV and hear them on the radio every day. Hell, we even have our own version of Colonel Blimp.

Posted by PrahaPartizan | December 1, 2007 8:38 AM

It wasn't the privateers that drove off the British navy...it was the big-government socialist Frenchmen.

Posted by Patrick | December 1, 2007 1:51 PM