Sep 09, 2023
This week's puzzler is about estimates. And it is a little difficult. This comes from a mathematics professor from a while back. Here we go.
Estimate the number you will get by multiplying the number of hairs on the heads of every single citizen of the United States by each other.
So, you take the number of hairs on one person, and then you multiply that by the number of hairs on the next person. And then you keep doing that, for all the people in the United States.
So there will be lots of numbers multiplied together. And this won't be exact, obviously.
So the puzzler is to estimate what that final number will be.
And here is a little hint in the form of a poem.
"While you do this calculation, please avoid a state of slumber and you'll find with fascination, It's got nothing to do at all with Avogadro's number."
Good luck.
So, answer time.
This was a trick puzzler. I wonder how many of you got it?
Estimate the number you will get by multiplying the number of hairs on the heads of every single citizen of the United States by each other.
So you might take the average number of hairs on a person's head and then multiply that by the number of people in our country, like 150,000 to the 250 millionth power or something like that.
But you would be wrong.
The answer is zero.
And the reason the answer is zero is because there are quite a few people in our country with no hair at all. And once you multiply anything by zero, you get zero.
So, no matter how many people are in our country, as long as there is one person who is bald, the answer will be zero.
