Download Fermi Quiz Instructions

Fermi Quiz Instructions
Physics is the science of measurement with three of the most fundamental quantities being mass,
length and time. An important part of measurement is estimation. Often an exact answer is
impossible, but you wish to know the order of magnitude of a quantity.
Aim In this quiz you should estimate the values of certain quantities to the nearest power of ten.
Method For each question give the number to which you have to raise ten to get your answer.
1 = 100
10 = 101
100 = 10 x 10 = 102
1000 = 10 x 10 x 10 = 103
10,000 = 10 x 10 x10 x 10 = 104
100,000 = 10 x 10 x10 x 10 x 10= 105
and so on.
For example if you think the answer to the question is closer to 10,000,000 than 1,000,000 or
100,000,000 you should give your answer as 7 as 10,000,000 =107 (i.e.10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10
x 10).
Example
What is the volume of a car in m3? A car is roughly a rectangular block of height 1.5m, width 1.5m
and length 4m. Volume = 1.5 x 1.5 x 4 = 9m3. this is nearer to 10 than 1 or 100 so the answer is 1
since 10 =101.
Conditions The answer must be given in the units specified
Time limit To be completed by the end of the fourth event.
Ranking The mark for each question will be the difference between your value and the correct
value. The sum of the marks for each question will be determined, with the lowest total mark
getting the highest ranking. A perfect score is zero.
Event Sponsors
Rotary Club of York Vikings
Just in case you didn’t
know
Formulae
speed = distance
time
distance
speed
time
density = mass
volume
mass
density
volume
Surface area of a sphere = 4πr2
Volume of a sphere = 4/3 πr3
Data
1 pound = 16 ounces
1 kg = 2.2 pounds
Density of gold = 19.3 g/cm3
Diameter of nucleus 1 10-14 m
Diameter of atom 1 10-10 m
Mach 1 = speed of sound
Radius of Sun = 696,000 km
Radius of Earth = 6,400 km
Radius of Moon = 1,740 km ( 1/4 Earth radius)
Average radius of orbit of Earth around the Sun = 1.5 1011 m
[this distance is called 1 astronomical unit (AU)]
Speed of light = 300,000,000 m/s
Mass of Earth = 6 1024 kg
Mass of Moon = 7.3 1023 kg
Mass of Sun = 2 1030 kg
The Sun’s diameter is about 400 times the Moon’s diameter and about 400 times
further away so it appears the same size as the Moon when viewed from Earth
Nearest Star—Proxima Centauri 4.2 light years away
The Milky Way Galaxy is a spiral galaxy and contains at least 200 billion stars
Diameter of galaxy = 100, 000 light years
Event Sponsors
Rotary Club of York Vikings
Team
Fermi Quiz
goals
2) What is the total mass of all of the gold medals that will be awarded in the 2012
London Olympic Games?
kg
3) How many smarties would fit into the Memorial Hall?
smarties
4) If one ounce of gold was to be drawn into a wire of diameter equal to 1/20 of the
thickness of a £10 note, how long would the wire be?
m
5) How many bananas placed end to end would it take to go a distance once around
the equator of the earth?
bananas
6) If the entire population of the earth were crowded together so that they were
standing shoulder to shoulder and toe to toe on the surface of a newly discovered
exo-planet, what would be the radius of the planet?
m
7) Given that the mean distance between Venus and the Sun is 0.72 Astronomical
Units (1AU is the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun) and that Venus’s
orbital period (time for one complete revolution) is 0.62 earth years, how fast is
Venus moving through space?
km/hour
8) What distance will a car, travelling at the motorway speed limit, cover in the time
it takes for a laser signal to travel from the earth to the next nearest star to us after
the sun and back again?
m
9) To finally answer the question about the existence of the Loch Ness monster
Scotland decides to drain Loch Ness. They dam off the feeding/draining rivers and
insert a common bath drain in the bottom. Loch Ness, the biggest lake in the UK,
is on average 22.5 miles long by 1 mile wide and, on average, 430 feet deep. If
water flows down the drain with a velocity of 100 cm per second how many days
would it take to drain the loch?
days
10) Pictured overleaf is the Atlas Detector at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
What is the mass of the detector?
People
20p
1) What will be the total number of goals scored in this year’s UEFA European
Championships?
Event Sponsors
Rotary Club of York Vikings
Team
Fermi Quiz Bonus Question
How many smarties are in the glass jar at the front of the Memorial Hall? Give your
answer to the nearest whole number of smarties (so don’t worry about powers of ten
for this one).
smarties
Event Sponsors
Rotary Club of York Vikings