Alex Bryce
Blog Post #11
So I found two amusing scientific articles:
Ghosts, Vampires, and Zombies: Cinema Fiction vs Physics Reality
by C. J. Efthimiou and S. Gandhi
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0608059
(Click on download pdf on the right side)
Mathematics of the Human-Vampire Conflict
by Dino Sejdinovic
Published in the Nov. 2008 issue of Math Horizons (I’m sure an online version of the article will appear soon)
Basically, the first article attempts to prove that ghosts, vampires, and zombies cannot have existed. There’s some flaws and holes in their argument (i.e., not all populations grow exponentially like they assume), so it’s not well written. It’s still an interesting and amusing read 
The second article basically critizes the first article, although it focuses specifically on their vampire section. The author uses basic bio-math principles to show that human-vampire dyamics is much more complex than presented in the first article.
Happy reading!
My copy of Math Horizons is at home
. I can’t wait to read that article!
If you consider vampirism as a virus, then it would depend on how it spreads and how many people on average a vampire infects. In, say, Interview with the Vampire, there would have to be a pretty conscious desire on the Vampire’s part on whether to turn someone into a vampire. So the number of people a vampire infects would depend on that vampire (ie R naught would depend on the vampire him/herself). Also, not all vampires can reproduce (for example in Vampire Knight only pure blooded vampires can reproduce), so that would have to be taken into account. Also how long do vampires live?
I don’t know whether they consider the vampire in that way, but I think that’s where I would start.