Haris Durrani ’11
Opinions Editor

There’s a lot of math and science to vampire lore, according to Dr. Nick Morgan, a physics and Authentic Scientific Research (ASR) teacher, some of which provides proof that the usual method of siring and biting victims is impossible for more than about thirty years.

Morgan calculated the rate of vampire population growth beside the rate of normal human growth if vampires were not in existence. He started in the year 1600 (when the human population was approximately 500,000,000) because he said the time period is relevant to vampire lore.

His calculations were conservative – a given vampire bites only one human per year. Beginning with one vampire in 1600, it sires and then bites a human so that there are two vampires by 1601. Then each of those bites one other human within the next year.

The results, despite the conservative mathematical assumptions, are illogical.

By around 1629, Morgan’s calculations indicate that everyone in the world would become a vampire because the rapidly growing blood-sucker population would overtake the dwindling human decay. Once humans are extinct, vampires would have no more blood to suck, so they’d die off as well.

“From a scientific standpoint, it’s difficult to entertain the notion that you can sustain a vampire population,” Morgan said.

If vampires did exist, there would have to be one “alpha” vampire which turns humans into “beta” vampires that still have blood which the alpha vampire exctract. Essentially, only one true vampire would ever exist.

“If that’s the case, you’ve put in an artificial limit,” Morgan said. “The [alpha] vampire’s offspring will not reproduce. That’s the only way [for the logic to work out]. The bitten person would become a beta vampire subject to the commands of the alpha vampire.”

Morgan also mentioned the physics of vampires and sunlight, and brought up the question of what type of wavelengths kill vampires.

“A vampire is encased in heat constantly,” Morgan said. “Heat does not kill them, but light does. I believe it’s a specific wavelength of light that kills them.”

Octavia Butler, the first well-known African-American woman science fiction author, wrote her last novel, “Fledgling,” about genetically-altered vampires impervious to sunlight, and Morgan agreed that artificially producing light-resistant vampires is a possibility.

“You [as a vampire] can simply absorb sunlight and reradiate it out at a different part of the spectrum,” he explained, later adding that the fact that a vampire has no reflection is most likely related to the wavelength of light which kills it.

He also said the stake with which a human might pierce a vampire through the heart can be made of any material, though wooden stakes might be more preferable.

“Practically, it’s easier to kill a vampire with wooden stakes because they’re faster and lighter whereas metal stakes would slow you down,” Morgan said.