Science vs. Religion, and a clever graphic

I heard today there are some 3 billion internet users in the world. I've heard similar numbers before, but when I heard it today I thought: hey! There's only a bit over 2 billion Christians! Maybe Science is winning this thing after all! Particularly when you consider Christ had a nearly 2000 year head start!

 

But here's really why I'm writing. Pull up this web page:

 

 

At first sight, it looks like a simple graphic with a counter. But if you hover your cursor over any particular person (icon), you'll see a number. A unique number, in order. Scroll back and forth, and each integer from 1 to almost 3 billion is represented.

 

Now, it clearly is not loading a page with 3 billion icons on it. It's not a great mystery, of course, but I don't know precisely how they are doing it, and it just struck me as rather clever. In a small way, but clever enough to make me smile.

 

And perhaps, you will too.