Letter: All the world on the Isle of Wight

Sir: Can the world's population fit in an area the size of the Isle of Wight? Not according to your Technoquest expert (Tabloid; Science, 8 April) who says that only 1.6 billion people would fit in. Wrong.

Your expert claims to have derived his figure from dividing the "approximately 400 square kilometres (380 to be more precise) by the average space occupied by one person - given as 625 square centimetres. But if you divide these two figures what you actually get is 6.4 billion, which suggests that the current world's population of around 5.6 billion would indeed fit. Your correspondent seems to have calculated the figure for 100 square kilometres only.

However his figure of 625 square centimetres is a bit tight; this is 16 people per square metre.

If you allow a slightly more realistic 10 people per square metre then only four billion people would fit (or 3.8 billion if one uses the 380 square kilometre figure).

P DANT

Eastbourne,

East Sussex