Bruce Raup wrote: >> >"A fire has burned a square-shaped area that measures 5800 acres. How >> >long is one side of the square? (Or, how long would it take to walk the >> >length of one side of the square?)" >> > >> >(The answer is that it's a 3 mi by 3 mi square, or 4.8 km by 4.8 km.) >> >> >> Not quite. 3 x 3 x 640 = 5760 > >I realized the conversion wasn't exact. But 3.01 rounds to 3, and I used >only one significant figure. Even "3.0" would be correct. > >I chose 5800, rather than 5760, because it is a "rounder" number. I was >trying to come up with an example that would involve nice round numbers >both for the number of acres and side dimension. If I used 5760, someone >might think it's a hard problem just because it's not a round number. In >news reports about fires, you hear numbers like 5800, but you don't >typically hear numbers like 5760. > >BTW, I always enjoy your postings to the list. > >Cheers, >Bruce Thanks for the compliment and the explanation. I am afraid that I push my desire for accuracy too far sometimes. Joe Joseph B. Reid 17 Glebe Road West Toronto M5P 1C8 Tel. 416 486-6071
