Minecraft Forums

Hey everyone! I just recently got into Minecraft, and i absolutely love it. I have a pretty mathematical background, so, while i was up late, i came up with this. If you find my math to be wrong, simply respond with the correction, and I'll go back in and edit.

"I did some calculations, cause i was bored, to see about how much of the map i had explored in my Minecraft world. Keep in mind I've spent 24-36 hours in this world.

Opening some of my game files, i found that I had explored around 4,950,000 square meters ( 1 block = 1 square meter). For the sake of the calculations we'll say 5,000,000 square meters. 5 million square meters = 5 square kilometers. 1 Minecraft world = 8 times the surface area of the Earth. The surface area of the earth is 510,072,000 square kilometers.

So, 8 * 510,072,000 = 4,080,576,000 (4 Billion Square Kilometers!)
I have explored 5 square kilometers.

5 kmsq / 4,080,576,000 kmsq = .0000000001225317

In, we'll just say 36 hours, i have explored, practically speaking, 0% of the full potential of my map.

To calculate the amount of time it would take me to explore the map at the rate i was going (I'll admit, i was doing some mining, crafting, etc)...

.0000000001225317 * 10 Billion = 1.2 (% of the map)

1.2 * 83.3 = 100%

So then, the amount of time it would take to completely explore a world on Minecraft, to be able to go no further, is 36 hrs * 83.3 Billion = 2,998,800,000,000

Approximately 3 trillion hours.

Average human life expectancy is 78 years.

78 years = 683,280 hours

So to find the amount of Lifetimes it would take to completely explore a Minecraft map, you just do 3,000,000,000,000 / 683,280

At the rate I was going, it would have taken me 4,390,586 lifetimes to explore the Minecraft map. "

Looks like we need at least 100,000,000 players all on one server for this to happen anytime soon.

I have only done Singleplayer so far, so i am only sure of their size. Are the multiplayer worlds the same?

How did you determine the size of your Minecraft world? I can almost guarantee that an estimate based on file size is completely meaningless because of compression and you have to keep in mind the game is 3D not 2D. Also, at least for me, the vast majority of time is spent is building rather than exploring so an estimate of exploration time based on total time will be way off. Logic is merely the correct extrapolation of initial assumptions. If your starting premises are off then your conclusion will be off by relatively at least as much.

Quote from supercolio »

Sweet calculations man. I realised something too. My fort is 50x50 blocks (it looks big) = 250 square meter. My real home has that amount of floorspace.
I build small.

50x50 blocks is 2500 square meters, not 250.

You live in a 2500 square meter house!?

A good sized, full family house in the suburbs is only around 300 square meters.

So indeed, sir, you have built a palace, or a mighty fortress. Not that small.

Mind = blown

I thought notch said it was 1.8x the surface of earth?

The map file size is probably more based on complexity than number of blocks, so the part of the map that you mess with is going to be a bigger file than say empty ocean with solid rock underneath it. Though I guess if your map file is 38 megabytes then most of that is relatively untouched, and assuming the generator generates at roughly the sample complexity everywhere Usurper's estimate would be fairly accurate. How do you guys find out how much area you've explored?

but what if you use a boat
travel lot faster in boats
or use the nether, will be about 8 times as fast I reckon
well to get to the end of the map that is, wouldn't really be exploring since you haven't seen any of it (so it wouldn't even be generated)

"In Infdev and Alpha, maps are infinitely big. They are made up of chunks; as the player explores the map distant chunks are generated automatically, leading to theoretically infinite maps. In practice, technical reasons force the maximum map size to 8 times the surface area of the Earth [1]. Whilst the horizontal planes of the Maps are vast in size, the vertical plane remains at a fixed 128 Block height [2]. Although player deviation outside the bounds of the generated map is possible, such as via the void in gaps of the bedrock, it will result in recurring damage until the players death. "

http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/map

Very cool :biggrin.gif:

Quote from thehax »

Quote from Usurper »

Quote from lenvris »

What about the filesize? I have explored about 4,500,000 square meters and the mapfile is 37.9mb. How heavy would the mapfile be with 510,072,000 square kilometers explored?

Well, I think this is how it can be calculated roughly...

510,072,000 / 4,500,000 = ~113
37,9 * 113 = 4282 so 4282 mb or 4 gigs.

I think...

I am sorry, but that seems to be wrong. it is 4,500,000 square METERS and 510,072,000 square KILOMETERS.
That said, the calculation should look like this:

510,072,000 / 4,500 ~ 113349
37,9 * 113349 = 4295927 mb or roughly 4296gb or 4,3terrabyte

Sorry but...

4,500,000 square meters = 4.5 square kilometers

1 kilometer is 1,000 meters so, 1 square kilometer is 1 kilometer x 1 kilometer
or 1,000 meters x 1,000 meters
or 1,000,000 square meters.

4,500,000 / 1,000,000 = 4.5

Now, I recall reading that notch said that a world can be 30,000 square kilometers x 30,000 square kilometers
or 900,000,000 million square kilometers...

But lets just stick with 510,072,000 number (because it's freaking big no matter how you cut it)

So,

510,072,000 / 4.5 ~ 113,349,333

37.9 * 113,349,333 = 4,295,939,720 mb or (roughly) 4,195,253 GB or 4,096 Terabytes or 4 PETABYTES!

If the 900,000,000 million number is correct then just multiply by two (what's a few terabytes here and there?)
for up to 8 Petabytes!!

Gonna need a bigger hard drive :smile.gif:

You could have just searched petabytes and found that that was the amount of space a fully explored world would take....No computer in existence can handle the data load, so it is very muchly an infinite world.