When Zombies Attack...

Tuesday, 18th August 2009

I'm far from being a zombie aficionado, but isn't this obvious?

If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively.
That is the conclusion of a mathematical exercise carried out by researchers in Canada. They say only frequent counter-attacks with increasing force would eradicate the fictional creatures.

My confidence in this research is not, mind you, boosted by this

Professor Robert Smith? (the question mark is part of his surname and not a typographical mistake) and colleagues wrote: "We model a zombie attack using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies.

"We introduce a basic model for zombie infection and illustrate the outcome with numerical solutions."

On his university web page, the mathematics professor at Ottawa University says the question mark distinguishes him from Robert Smith, lead singer of rock band The Cure.

Worse still, it seems out intrepid researchers have stacked the deck:

To give the living a fighting chance, the researchers chose "classic" slow-moving zombies as our opponents rather than the nimble, intelligent creatures portrayed in some recent films.

"While we are trying to be as broad as possible in modelling zombies - especially as there are many variables - we have decided not to consider these individuals," the researchers said.

In other words they are cheating. It's like something out of Dad's Army: You can't fight like that, it's not in the rules... Then again, if we can be destroyed by Zombie 1.0, just think how powerless we'd be when confronted by Next Generation Zombies...

UPDATE: Dan Drezner does yeoman work in applying this to International Relations Theory. This is what the internets is for.

UPDATE 2: Reason's Tim Cavanaugh has yet more!

Filed under: Cinema (14 more articles) , Hackery (155 more articles) , Zombies (1 more articles)

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Anthony

August 18th, 2009 1:38pm Report this comment

"I'm far from being a zombie aficionado..."

Clearly unacceptable.

Jeremy

August 18th, 2009 1:52pm Report this comment

I actually quite like some zombie flicks. I think "Shaun of The Dead" is something of a Brit classic (although possibly not quite as funny as its TV precursor "Spaced" - which was brilliant).

I also think the remake of "Dawn of The Dead" (with the really fast, running zombies) was quite good. Shocking, in places, but with longueurs, and the "mall" setting was quite effective. Although I can't stand malls in real life - their banality stultifies me - they actually work quite well as film locations.

Curiously enough, however, George A Romero's zombie flicks bore me and I have rarely, if ever, sat all the way through one of 'em.

Verity;

August 18th, 2009 3:02pm Report this comment

Dr Robert Smith? has definitely tapped into a new, hitherto ignored, promising stream of academic pretentiousness with his name.

Eric C at onviolence.com

August 18th, 2009 7:38pm Report this comment

I'm more scared of the slow moving zombies, the quick ones will run out of energy before they can infect new victims. Large natural barriers, as was seen in 28 days laters, will naturally protect us form them.

Fergus Pickering

August 19th, 2009 2:37pm Report this comment

My dear Fellow you are doubtless too young to have seen Sobers, Kanhai, Dexter or Graeme Pollock. And FAR too young to have seen Denis Compton. But perhapps I've been unlucky with Ponting. Power he has but little grace as far as I am concerned.

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