Bill:

I worked it out another way:
One cubic feet of water = 7.48052 gallons of water
One cubic feet of water, when one inch deep,  covers 12 square feet.
One acre covers 43,560 square feet.

Thus 12/7.48052 = 43,560/x ...  So,  x = 27,154.287

That's how I came up with an answer, right or wrong.
Of course, this assumes no absorption and no evaporation.

Neal

On Jan 47, 1120092007, at 6:05 PM, Bill Rising wrote:

On Jan 7, 2009, at 15:25, Neal Hammon wrote:

> Bill:
>
> With paper, and assuming no ground absorption, it appears that one
> inch of rain per acre gives us 27,154.29 gallons of water. Am I
> close?    Neal

I'd have to go through the computations, again. That's the beauty of
it... it's a pain, it takes time, and it yields a number which isn't
easily remembered. Lessee, here's the logic I usually use (with some
approximations):
                1 sq. mile   5280 ft * 5280 ft    1 ft
1 inch-acre * ---------- * ----------------- *  -----
                640 acres         1 sq mile       12 in

puts everything into cubic feet, say AAA cu. ft.

There are now 2 paths: approximate 1 cubic ft by 60 lbs of water,
remember 'a pint is a pound the world round', and hence get

               60 lbs water      1 pint     1 gallon
AAA cu. ft * ------------ *  ---------- * --------
                 1 cu. ft      1 lb water   8 pints

or convert through metric and remember conversions from the grocery
store:

                3 m     3 m     3 m     1000 l.   4 gallons
AAA cu. ft * ----- * ----- * ----- *  ------ *  --------
               10 ft   10 ft   10 ft    cu. m.     15 l.

this is a bit low, because there are slighly more than 3 meters in 10
feet.

All the canceling of common factors and little multiplication
approximations are the fun part. (Remember that 'fun' is a relative
statement, just like 'aunt martha'.)

I'm not going to multiply it out, because I'll then remember the
number and will need to think of some other computation to do while
driving.

Bill

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_______________________________________________
The next Louisville Computer Society meeting will
be January 27 at MacAuthority, 128 Breckinridge Lane. 
Posting address: [email protected]
Information: http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup

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