well i hope that's accurate
i feel like i should maybe ask somebody
um
wish me luck
so how many golf balls can you fit in a
boeing 747
i i
have no idea how many tennis balls
oh god wow wow
my first step is to dimension the size
of a golf ball which
i actually don't know a golf ball is i
don't know um
i've never played golf before if you
play tennis a little bit smaller than a
tennis ball
i'm gonna predict that a golf ball is
four inches by four inches
in diameter and a headrest is probably
i don't know here's my head so let's say
it's
that big and maybe
[Music]
that thick and now i'm just trying to
break down the seat to figure out how
many golf balls are in it so
in this headrest there were about 15.
i'm gonna say
that there are three rows of three
headrests that can fit in the back
portion of it and then i'm gonna say
there's two rows of three for
the bottom part then that gives us three
six
nine on the top six on the bottom 15
times
15 golf balls in each headrest there are
15 headrests in the seat that gives us
225 golf balls
per seat i'm now attempting to draw a
plane
i'm such an architect it's like i gotta
get it right
oh gosh i'm sorry that looks horrible
can i just line up my wings
this is very bad so you have the cabin
which is like x1
x2 is like where the passenger goes with
all the seats those are
what the seats are and then x3 which is
like the undercarriage which might be
down here
and you know just where all the luggage
goes when i first think about
the plane and plan what is a variable
that i can you know replicate
numerous times and that's the seat in a
747
primarily they have two seats here two
seats here
an aisle an aisle and three seats in the
middle
so that's seven seats across in each row
i will assume a boeing 747
has about 80 rows so if there are 366
seats so 366 seats in a boeing 747 that
means that
366 divided by 7 would be
about 52 rows now
if i were to say a typical chair for a
person
is about 18 inches wide and a boeing 747
has three
aisles of seating with potentially four
seats in the middle
three seats on either end how many seats
are in just one row i'm gonna add two
seats
per row because there's an aisle here
where i can add a seat
hypothetically so if i'm adding two
seats per row
that would give me 104 extra seats that
i could fit in for that
first layer across the bottom there's
470 seats on the bottom layer
times 225 that gives me 105
750 golf balls so we have
six and four is ten so we have ten
times eighteen that gives us a hundred
and eighty inches
then we multiply that by eighty rows
that's
fourteen thousand four hundred inches
that would give me one 1
200 feet so now we would have to
incorporate circulation
now you got to think about those golf
balls are really small i've got so many
gaps in between each seat
so if i were to relate circulation to an
airplane
that would mean the aisles that go from
the front and the back of the plane the
space in between
the seats so that everyone can get to
their seat comfortably
i'm gonna seriously ballpark this so
across i've got seven seats
let's say there are seven gaps where 100
golf balls can fit that's
seven gaps on each row so seven times
52 rows is 364.
so 364 times let's say in each gap 100
golf balls can fit
36 400 and like a typical building
in new york city's standard of quality
housing you need about 30 percent of
circulation in a in a space so what's 30
of 1 200 feet that's 360 feet
that's 360 square feet
i just realized it's not just feet 1 200
square feet plus 360
gives us 1560 square feet so that
includes seats
and circulation so now i'm gonna picture
how many layers
of seats can i stack on top of each
other in that gap in the cabin
i'm gonna say maybe three rows just
because the the seats are high
so then i'm gonna do that number times
three three hundred and seventeen
thousand two hundred and fifty golf
balls that's how many golf balls
i have in three layers of seats and that
comes out as being
350 3 650.
now we have to think about the cockpit
where the pilot
is as well as areas for meal prep
and the bathrooms x2 is very big right
it's like
52 rows plus a space on top so i'm going
to say there's
you know got to be at least 10 that'll
fit in there
now maybe that's a little bit
overestimating but i think i
underestimated for the amount of golf
balls anyway so
let's just go with that so i'm just
going to estimate 40
because typically in a building you have
to think about 40
of the space goes to infrastructure like
mechanical systems and plumbing so if
there are
353 650 golf balls that fit into the
cabin
there would be 10 that fit in there so
that number divided by 10.
that's going to be 35 365.
what's 40 of 15 1560 square feet so now
we'll do 624
plus 1560 and that'll get us
2184.
so now we have the floor plan covered
and now we have to think about it
in volume the x3 is what we have left
typical height in an apartment in new
york could
be around eight to ten feet high and
then the height of the carry-on luggage
so we'll say 11
feet head clearance and then we'll add
an additional
two feet for the material of the plane
and so that's
13 feet height i don't actually know
exactly how
big a 747 is but i would imagine very
very big
now if we have to consider the space
below where the baggage claim is
typically someone can actually walk in
that space to grab
luggage i would say that it's roughly
the same size
as the cabin or maybe even bigger and so
i will just double that height
and make that 26 feet now i will
multiply
26 feet by 2184
square feet the grand total
is now 35 365
plus 353 650
plus 353 again 650
equals 742
665 so that's our grand total for
a 747 that does not actually have the
366 seats
so my last step would be to divide
the total cubic feet of the plane by
the cubic feet that i've figured out for
the golf ball
but if we have an airliner we do have
those seats that can't hold the golf
balls 56
784 cubic feet divided by
12 cubic feet that total answer would be
4732
golf balls if it has 366 seats
366 seats times however many golf balls
can fit into each seat
we said was 225 so 366
times 225 would give us
82 350. that really does not feel real
i'm not comfortable with that answer so
i'm going to
do this number minus this number to get
our grand total for an
airline 747 gives us 660
315 golf balls oh i know what the
problem is
i did 12 cubic feet not 12 cubic inches
so there's actually another step that
would be multiplying by 12.
oh that's funny which would give me 56
784
golf balls final answer i have a gut
feeling that that's way too little
it may be a little bit low still i mean
i'm gonna have to trust the math at this
point i thought i would come out to a
number that was maybe a million or so
i think i told you a head head rest is
about like this big so if i were to go
back i'd probably tweak the size of the
golf ball
i think far more than 15 golf balls can
fit into there maybe more along the
range of 25 or 30 golf balls in aviation
they always want you to refer
back to you know facts you're always
supposed to follow your checklist in an
emergency you're supposed to rely on
your instruments
it did bring back the inner third grade
in me where it's like oh you got to stay
up all night and figure out this math
problem do you have an actual answer
well not exactly we found a lot of
different answers to this brain teaser
but the whole point of these questions
is to show how people think
google no longer asks these brain
teasers because they don't predict
how well someone would do at a job but
we wanted to have
a little fun with it feel free to let us
know in the comments below more brain
teasers you would like to see solve
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