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Estimate the number of golf balls that can fit in a 747

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edited on Oct 05, 2018
ex-Manager - Natural and challenging teacher - Taylor case solving, no framework

Hi,

lol, the famous one. I will quickly explain the principle here and leave you the maths :)

1. Calculate the volume available in an air plane

  • Central bridge : you can consider this as cylinder, and calculate its volume = lenght of the plane x pi x (diameter of the bridge /2)²
  • wings : you can consider this as rectangulare volume = lengt x witdth x height

2. Calculate the volume of a golf ball

  • this is a sphere, volume = 4/3 x pi x (diameter/ 2)^3

3. Evaluate the volume loss due to the spheric shape of the ball, air will fill this space

  • its the difference of volume between a cube and a sphere of the same height (D) : Diff = D^3 - 4/3 x pi x (D/2)^3 
  • you can as well approximate it with a % of volume loss 

Hope this helps

Best
Benjamin

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