American population reaches 300,000,000

Did you feel it? The great American population odometer rolled over to 300,000,000 on October 17. (It was at 7:46am EDT, if you’re keeping track.)

Three hundred million is a big milestone for us, but China estimates that its one-child policy has reduced its population by roughly the same amount. In other words, in 25 years, China has not produced as many people as the US only now has.

This reminds me of a fascinating update of an ancient list. The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (how many can you list before you look it up?) was written more than 2000 years ago. What’s interesting is that they’re all primarily buildings -- a pyramid, a lighthouse, a couple of statues, and so on.

The Economist magazine attempted an updated list in 1993 (“The Age of the Thing,” 12/25/93). But their list of modern wonders didn’t have a single building -- not a skyscraper, not a monument, and not enormous buildings like NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building at Cape Canaveral (big enough to hold an entire Saturn 5 rocket) or Boeing’s airplane construction building in Everett, WA (the world’s biggest building). The closest it comes is with one entry, the offshore oil platform.

Other entries are the expected gems of our modern high tech world: the microprocessor, the telephone network, the jumbo jet, the hydrogen bomb, and the moon landing.

The last one may not come to mind as readily: the birth control pill, invented in 1963. This, plus the modern latex condom developed about 30 years earlier, gave us the convenient, reliable, and inexpensive birth control that has helped keep the world population (6.5 billion and rising) somewhat under control. Sometimes the important technologies aren’t the most glamorous.