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Academic

: The Faculty Lounge

When Zombies Attack!

By Mark Weidemaier

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In keeping with our mission of bringing readers the latest in cutting edge research, a team of researchers (two students and one faculty member) from Carleton University (no, not lovely Carleton College!) and the University of Ottawa have published an important new study: When Zombies Attack!: Mathematical Modelling of an Outbreak of Zombie Infection. The bad news: "An outbreak of zombies affecting humans is likely to be disastrous, unless extremely aggressive tactics are employed against the undead." Here's the abstract:

Zombies are a popular figure in pop culture/entertainment and they are usually portrayed as being brought about through an outbreak or epidemic. Consequently, we model a zombie attack, using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies. We introduce a basic model for zombie infection, determine equilibria and their stability, and illustrate the outcome with numerical solutions. We then refine the model to introduce a latent period of zombification, whereby humans are infected, but not infectious, before becoming undead. We then modify the model to include the effects of possible quarantine or a cure. Finally, we examine the impact of regular, impulsive reductions in the number of zombies and derive conditions under which eradication can occur. We show that only quick, aggressive attacks can stave off the doomsday scenario: the collapse of society as zombies overtake us all.

Sadly, as with most modeling exercises, the study is severely limited by its assumptions. In this case, by the assumption that zombies are "slow moving, cannibalistic, and undead." As the authors acknowledge, some zombies are very, very fast. Find out your chances of surviving a zombie apocalypse here.

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on August 19, 2009 (boomark / email).