Let's say you have one indian parent and one white, you could say you are 1/2 indian. If you reproduce with a 0% indian person your children will be 1/4 indian, if they reproduce with other 0% indian people their children will be 1/8th indian. These powers of 2 mean you can work back to Pochahontas's 1/1024th as being the result of one indian 10 generations ago and none since.
Any combination of the reciprocals of powers of 2 are possible. You will never for example find someone who is exactly 1/3rd of anything (or any other prime number). You could get close by for example having a 1/2 indian reproduce with someone who is 1/4 indian (resulting in 37.5% indian), and that child reproduces with someone who is 1/4 indian, resulting in someone who is 31.25% indian. With enough generations of different backgrounds you can approximate any %, but it will always involve the number 2.
1/1024... 1/256... What are these people robots or something?
Let's say you have one indian parent and one white, you could say you are 1/2 indian. If you reproduce with a 0% indian person your children will be 1/4 indian, if they reproduce with other 0% indian people their children will be 1/8th indian. These powers of 2 mean you can work back to Pochahontas's 1/1024th as being the result of one indian 10 generations ago and none since.
Any combination of the reciprocals of powers of 2 are possible. You will never for example find someone who is exactly 1/3rd of anything (or any other prime number). You could get close by for example having a 1/2 indian reproduce with someone who is 1/4 indian (resulting in 37.5% indian), and that child reproduces with someone who is 1/4 indian, resulting in someone who is 31.25% indian. With enough generations of different backgrounds you can approximate any %, but it will always involve the number 2.
So we're all robots in some sense.
lol I know I was actually doing the math while I wrote that. Just thought it was funny that they're using numbers commonly used in computing.
Well it takes 2 baby.