US: We all know the zombie apocalypse is coming thanks to informative documentaries films like Dawn of the Dead and World War Z.
But when it does come shuffling along, where's the best place to hide?
According to researchers at Cornell University it's the northern Rocky Mountains - from Idaho, Montana and Wyoming in the US to British Columbia in Canada.
Which doesn't exactly bode well for us Brits.
The team at Cornell arrived at their results by running a variety of simulations using statistical mechanics to explore how a real zombie apocalypse would spread.
"Modeling zombies takes you through a lot of the techniques used to model real diseases, albeit in a fun context," Alex Alemi, a graduate student at Cornell University, told phys.org.
"At their heart, the simulations are akin to modeling chemical reactions taking place between different elements and, in this case, we have four states a person can be in—human, infected, zombie, or dead zombie—with approximately 300 million people," Alemi said.
"Each possible interaction - zombie bites human, human kills zombie, zombie moves, etc. - is treated like a radioactive decay, with a half-life that depends on some parameters, and we tried to simulate the times it would take for all of these different interactions to fire, where complications arise because when one thing happens it can affect the rates at which all of the other things happen."
Statistical mechanics uses probability theory to try and present outcomes and behaviours of systems when the systems themselves are uncertain.
The results of the simulations showed cities would be overrun quickly but sparsely-populated mountain zones offer the best hideout. It runs contrary to some zombie literature that suggests a simultaneous universal outbreak and instead employs the "patient zero" theory.
The team at Cornell said that, in time, they hope to add more layers to the simulation, including advanced social dynamics.
Should the apocalypse arrive before that, we'd suggest grabbing your cricket bat and zombie-proof bike and making a break for the Grampians.
The Standard Group Plc is a
multi-media organization with investments in media platforms spanning newspaper
print operations, television, radio broadcasting, digital and online services. The
Standard Group is recognized as a leading multi-media house in Kenya with a key
influence in matters of national and international interest.
join