% 142857 7.00001e_6 1 % 7 0.142857 See, too low brow for a Cal Techie.
I am surprised that your physics final did not have the question, "how many piano tuners are there in Chicago"? It is said that any physicist worth his salt can give a pretty good estimate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem . I think Fermi was also the one who estimated the yield in the Trinity test by tossing up some pieces of paper and observing how far they traveled. His estimate was pretty close to the actual yield (within a factor of 2?). On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 11:45 AM, Robert Bernecky <[email protected]>wrote: > It is, indeed, cool! > > I think I was introduced to it there in my first physics > final, which had a bunch of one-point questions, such as these > two, intended to encourage you to think in metric: > > 1. Assume the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. Compute > the speed of light in furlongs per fortnight. > > 2. Assume the speed of light is 300,000 kilometers per second, > and that there are π×10^7 seconds in a year. Compute the > distance light travels in a year.* > > I don't recognize the other integer. > > Bob > > * I don't recall if the answer "one light year" was acceptable or not! > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
