Researchers at Cornell University have developed a statistical model for simulating the spread of a fictional zombie epidemic. Detailed in a study submitted to the scientific-paper repository arXiv, the model identifies northeastern Pennsylvania as the U.S. location most at risk of being overrun by the undead.
To develop the model, scientists in Cornell’s physics department broke down the U.S. population in a grid of roughly 3-kilometer-square boxes. They then built upon classic epidemiological models of infectious-disease transmission—measles, the flu and the like—to simulate a marauding band of undead ravaging the country.
What locales might those worried about zombies want to avoid? Highly populated areas are a bad bet in general, of course. But Alexander Alemi, a graduate student and one of the authors of the paper, notes that the most susceptible spots change over time.
Seven days after the initial outbreak, lower Manhattan, with the map’s highest population density at 299,616 people, has the highest zombie susceptibility. In fact, the New York City metro area in general is probably best avoided, as are other large cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas.
By 28 days out, however, the pattern has shifted, Mr. Alemi says. Instead of individual cities being at the greatest risk, areas located between multiple major cities are most vulnerable. “You start to see interactions between different cities,” he says. While northeastern Pennsylvania, identified in the paper as the country’s most vulnerable region, “doesn’t have a particularly high population itself, it is near all these other high population areas.”
This means that were a zombie outbreak to start in any of these nearby cities—New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C.—the creatures would have a high probability of finding their way to northeastern Pennsylvania, which puts the area at especially high risk, Mr. Alemi notes.
Also a bad bet—Bakersfield, Calif., which sits uncomfortably near San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The best spots for riding out a zombie apocalypse are sparsely populated areas of Montana and Nevada, which remain untouched even four months in, note Mr. Alemi and his co-authors.
The subject matter is completely hypothetical, of course. But the Cornell team’s zombie simulation could have applications for modeling real-life outbreaks, Mr. Alemi says."
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