How many hairs are there in the world?

Answer 1

This is a very hard question to answer. If you want to know how many human hairs, we can look at current estimates of the world population but different people with different hair colors seem to have different numbers of hairs. For example, BLONDE - 140,000 strands; BROWN - 110,000 strands; BLACK - 108,000 strands; RED - 90,000 strands So it is possible to estimate the number of each of these type of people in the world and then multiply that. We could average the number of hairs on a human head and multiply by the number of people. This ends up being a pretty crude estimate. We could use 100,00 hairs as an average and multiply by 6,783,557,000 which is an estimate of the world population. This answer ignores the other hairs on the human body. The ones that are not on your head. Furthermore, one needs to understand that any estimate for the number of hairs in the world would change by millions every day. People loose and gain hair all the time. Also, the population of the world changes dramatically every minute. So any such estimate needs to look at two rapidly changing numbers. Next problem is are we only talking about human hairs? Animals have hairs too and if you add that to the problem, it becomes even more complicated. I think it is worth taking a moment to understand the complexity of making such as estimate for such a simple question. It demonstrates an important concept in science known as the uncertainty principle. By the time we could possibly count all the hairs, the value would have changed enough to make our count almost worthless!

Answer 2

It is impossible to determine the exact number of individual hairs in the world as the number is constantly changing due to growth, shedding, and human population dynamics.