Today’s Math Estimation Exercise involves this short video. Estimate the maximum speed attained by the man as he hurtles through the mineshaft. Then estimate the precision of your estimate: [vimeo]26618119[/vimeo] BONUS EXERCISE: Estimate how much salt was removed from the section of the salt mine visible in this video.
Tag: estimate
How now, warm cow [Podcast 50]
Heat loss from a cow — that’s the deal in this week’s Improbable Research podcast. SUBSCRIBE on Play.it, iTunes, or Spotify to get a new episode every week, free. This week, Marc Abrahams —with dramatic readings by Daniel Rosenberg — tells about: Heat loss from a cow — Khan, Zahid A., Irfan Anjum Badruddin, G. A. Quadir, and K. N. Seetharamu (2006). ‘A Quick and Accurate […]
Old sewer numerical method
Nowadays there are many methods for estimating the approximate cost of sewers. In 1922, this diagram showed the then-state of the art: The diagram appears in the book Sewerage and Sewage Treatment, by Harold Eaton Babbitt (published by John Wiley and Sons, New York,1922).
Firing a shotgun to calculate the approximate value of π
This mathematics paper broadens the old definition of “a shotgun approach” to solving a problem: “A Ballistic Monte Carlo Approximation of π,” Vincent Dumoulin [pictured here], Félix Thouin, arXiv 1404.1499v2, April 8, 2014. (Thanks to investigator Marcus Sprenkel for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at the University of Montreal, report: “We compute a […]
