What we do



Contact details

telephone : 01285 582998

email :

General view of the 'Our World' zone Overall view of the Centre for Life exhibition View of the panel and the Population Counter

Counting the world's population at the Life Science Centre, Newcastle

Xor Systems was asked to develop a large digit display to hang in a new exhibition at the Life Science Centre in Newcastle. It provides an up to the minute count of the current population of the world. As you watch, the count steadily, inexorably, increases.

Life approached Xor Systems to produce a "real-time" display of world population, using the same algorithms used by the UN for its assessments. The resultant exhibit, the "Population Counter" forms the centrepiece of a display of human impacts. The ever-increasing count follows an irregular pattern to show how the number of living humans continues to increase.

"After more than a year's operation the counter is working well, and it still has the power to stop some adults in their tracks when they realise the significance of what it is telling them" said Andy Lloyd.

The Centre for Life

The Centre for Life is a 'science village' located in the centre of Newcastle upon Tyne. It brings scientists, clinicians and the public together in one location. At its heart is a science centre featuring public exhibitions and laboratory facilities for schools.

During 2006 and 2007, the main permanent exhibitions were replaced with a new set of displays on Human Life. One of the zones, "Our World", explores the way different societies have adapted in order to live in diverse environments around the world.

"We wanted to show how successful humans have been at finding ways to live in difficult circumstances" said Andy Lloyd, the Centre's Head of Exhibit Development, "but at the same time we wanted to show that there have been consequences resulting from this. As the population has grown, so too has our impact on the world."

The unit is bright, with ten 7-segment LED digits. Each digit is over 100 millimetres in height. The display is around 700 millimetres in length. It is driven by a Puppeteer board, with a program written in Java to calculate the current world population. The Puppeteer board has a built-in real-time clock, so it knows the current date and time and calculates an estimate of the population based on the current time.

You can find out more about the Centre for Life at www.life.org.uk.

Xor Systems 01285 582998