Bulgaria and Romania are In. | 100 comments (100 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Bulgaria and Romania are In. (none / 1)

But the day that the EU will take in a member as populated as all the EU states put together, and as large as half the surface of the Moon, has not arrived yet.

Well, on population, Russia is not as big as the whole EU, it is much less: currently, 31% of the EU-25 (142.8 million vs. 458.5 million). But while Russia's population declines faster than any country in the EU-25 (in fact the whole EU-25 is projected to grow until 2025), the EU will most likely absorb another 120-150 million (Romania, Bulgaria, ex-Yugoslavia, Turkey) before Russia. So if Russia joins say in 2025, it will be around 20% of the then-EU: about the same ratio as Turkey would be in 2015, or the last ten new members were to the EU-15.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Wed Sep 27th, 2006 at 04:17:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Bulgaria and Romania are In. (none / 0)

Yeah you're right, for some weird reason I always project Russia at 350 million people!

by Alex in Toulouse on Wed Sep 27th, 2006 at 05:00:00 AM EST
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Re: Bulgaria and Romania are In. (none / 0)

Truly weird -- even the Soviet Union was only 250 million. Then again, if we consider that in a recent poll for the National Geographic, only 31% of young American adults correctly guessed the US population in the 150-350 million range [it is now just shy of 300 million], while 58% guessed higher (29% guess 1-2 billion!).

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Wed Sep 27th, 2006 at 05:21:48 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Bulgaria and Romania are In. (none / 0)

Woouuuuuudj, but then again I'm more certain about my "half the surface of the Moon" declaration, even if I need to recheck this.

by Alex in Toulouse on Wed Sep 27th, 2006 at 09:56:05 AM EST
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Re: Bulgaria and Romania are In. (none / 0)

Well, that's wrong too: the Moon's surface is some 150 million square kilometres, almost nine times that of Russia (17 million).

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Wed Sep 27th, 2006 at 10:55:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Bulgaria and Romania are In. (none / 0)

...but it is 4.5 times that of the current EU...

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Wed Sep 27th, 2006 at 10:57:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Bulgaria and Romania are In. (none / 0)

Damn damn damn.

by Alex in Toulouse on Wed Sep 27th, 2006 at 11:01:13 AM EST
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Re: Bulgaria and Romania are In. (none / 0)

Wait a minute!

On Wikipedia it says that the Moon's surface area is 3.793×10^7 km² (0.074 Earths). Or roughly 37 million square kilometers.

If Russia is 17 million square kilometers, then Russia's surface area is close to half the surface area of the Moon after all, no?

by Alex in Toulouse on Wed Sep 27th, 2006 at 03:49:18 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Bulgaria and Romania are In. (none / 0)

Damn damn damn! I don't know where I took the wrong figure from...

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Sep 28th, 2006 at 04:09:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Bulgaria and Romania are In. (none / 0)

Well after reading your comment, I thought damn damn damn, but then wondered how I had gotten it so wrong. So I googled "surface area" or "land surface" (can't remember), and found both values on various sites (150 and 37), that's when I realized something was wrong and checked further.

by Alex in Toulouse on Thu Sep 28th, 2006 at 05:40:26 AM EST
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Re: Bulgaria and Romania are In. (none / 0)

It's just one of those unexplainable things, like my conviction that I'm not drunk when I've had half a bottle of whiskey, or that I'm a super jogger with my nearly daily 6-9km runs though I keep receiving emails from a friend in Seattle who tells me he's preparing for the marathon there this year and for instance ran 29km the day before.

by Alex in Toulouse on Wed Sep 27th, 2006 at 10:01:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Bulgaria and Romania are In. (none / 1)

Heh. I see someone at Wikipedia was toying around with similar calculations, albeit they did so on the basis of present population numbers.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Wed Sep 27th, 2006 at 05:12:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Bulgaria and Romania are In. | 100 comments (100 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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