This magic moment
Today, the projected population of the Earth (available here) passed 6,666,666,666.
Around 9 years ago, I tried to put into the first sentence of a paper that the world's population was 6 billion. A reviewer wouldn't let me get away with rounding up, noting that "It's not 6 billion yet!"
Of course, by the time the paper was published, the sentence was true.
John Hawks Department of Anthropology
University of Wisconsin—Madison
Copyright © 2007 John Hawks