Estimation skills - Question 1

How many Calories in a Cubic Light Year of Ice cream?

  • 10^50

    Votes: 5 27.8%
  • 10^75

    Votes: 1 5.6%
  • 10^100

    Votes: 4 22.2%
  • way more than 10^100

    Votes: 8 44.4%

  • Total voters
    18
  • Poll closed .

Thread Starter

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
Estimation skills have become a lost art. With the ever present smart phone, the answer to every question can be googled or calculated on the spot. But, just as a shoot-from the hip estimate: what is your first guess. No pencil/paper/google/smart phone/calculator/computer - just 30 seconds of your thinking before you throw a number out there. The ranges are huge so some error is obviously allowed.
 

Hypatia's Protege

Joined Mar 1, 2015
3,228
How many Calories in a Cubic Light Year of Ice cream?
My guess assumes you are referring to nutritional content (as opposed to 'manifest heat' ) and, by corollary, dietetic Cals (i.e. Kcals) --- Ambiguity is da getter!;)

Best regards
HP

EDIT -- For the record my vote was item 1 (i.e. ≈10^50)
 
Last edited:

Hypatia's Protege

Joined Mar 1, 2015
3,228
yebbut... cals and kcals is only 10^3 difference. What difference does that make between the choice of 50-75-100?
True! -- However the difference between nutritional value and manifest heat content would likely be many orders of magnitude!:eek: --- My clarification of Cals vs 'dietetic Cals' was merely by way of aquainting folks with the disparity:)

Best regards
HP
 

Thread Starter

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
True! -- However the difference between nutritional value and manifest heat content would likely be many orders of magnitude!:eek: --- My clarification of Cals vs 'dietetic Cals' was merely by way of aquainting folks with the disparity:)

Best regards
HP
We were talking about food so, yes, dietetic calories (capital C is the convention in biology/food science literature, when such unit was fashionable). I realize I may have added confusion by capitalizing Cubic Light Year. For clarity, those are standard cubic light years, not k cubic light years.
 

Hypatia's Protege

Joined Mar 1, 2015
3,228
capital C is the convention in biology...
:confused: I'll take your word for it -- though I'm bound to say I've always used the capital 'C' --- Golly, Golly! I can but imagine all the 'non-life science types' whom must have enjoyed a clandestine laugh at my expense over the years:eek::(:(:(

But, Hey! -- I won't be a poor sport -- I've learned something today! -- Always a good thing:D:D:D

Best regards
HP:cool:
 

Thread Starter

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009

Thread Starter

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
If you tried to eat that much you would be dead. So it is a negative number.
My biggest concern about that much ice cream is that the dairy farm co-products necessary to make that much milk would be less than one light year from the ice cream.

For every gallon of milk a cow produces (about 8 per day), it makes 8 gallons of solid waste and 4 gallons of liquid waste.
 

KL7AJ

Joined Nov 4, 2008
2,229
Estimation skills have become a lost art. With the ever present smart phone, the answer to every question can be googled or calculated on the spot. But, just as a shoot-from the hip estimate: what is your first guess. No pencil/paper/google/smart phone/calculator/computer - just 30 seconds of your thinking before you throw a number out there. The ranges are huge so some error is obviously allowed.
Assuming 2000 calories a gallon, I come up with about 3^44 calories per cubic light year.
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,979
Doing it without pencil and paper is a bit hard for me since my stroke a number of years back -- it's hard for me to keep several numbers at hand at the same time. So it's pretty easy for me to drop a few orders of magnitude. Is writing in the air with my finger allowed? That's about the only way I can have a change of keeping track of things.

My best estimate (using about 200 kcal/cup -- don't know how reasonable that is) is 10^53.
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,979
Estimation skills have become a lost art. With the ever present smart phone, the answer to every question can be googled or calculated on the spot.
Absolutely agree. The huge degradation was due to common availability of cheap calculators and their subsequent overreliance in primary school education. The smart phone has simply patted down the last few shovels of dirt on the grave. It really is heart-breaking to see so many engineering students that can't multiply single digit numbers or tell you want ten square is or, heaven forbid, the square root of one hundred.
 
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