Jons MostovojsJan 25, 2024

Random thought — I have a tight-knit #Ukraine support group which is a band of my friends and me. My friends also contribute to other groups, so do I. There are amazing humans like @EugeneMcParland on mastodon with whom I'm only acquainted here, but we don't live that far from each other.

Question: if all of us will try to get together after the victory of #Ukraine, how large of a venue will we have to book? Where would be the "center of mass" of such gathering?

#FermiProblem #Puzzle

Matthew MartinJan 25, 2024

So you've decided to use #FermiEstimation. Now you have 2.7e12 problems, give or take 1e1 - 1e2.

#fermiproblem

Christian Lawson-PerfectNov 30, 2022
A #FermiProblem from the 5-year-old this morning: how many raspberries are there in the world?
fjditrDec 14, 2018
In a Fermi problem you estimate something like the number of piano tuners in Chicago by approximating the population of Chicago, the fraction of households with a piano, etc. But this idea works in reverse too. Say someone claims that there are N piano tuners in Chicago. To see if this is reasonable, work backwards: what would be required about the share of households with pianos and so on? If your answer seems unreasonable, the claim is probably false. #FermiProblem #ReverseFermiProblem
KoantigJan 30, 2018

"'Unsolvable' exam question leaves Chinese students flummoxed"
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-42857864

It might seem unfair at first but this is exactly the type of question that is sorely lacking in formal education, certainly not just in China. Asking for exactness alone has at least two bad side-effects: 1) students will think there's always one correct answer, 2) that a quick, rough approximation is not a good answer. This is the opposite of the real world.

#FermiProblem (1/2)

'Impossible' test stumps Chinese students

The test question cannot be solved with maths, but officials say that's not the point.