How many golf balls fit in a school bus?

Question

How many golf balls would fit inside a standard school bus? Reason from dimensions you can estimate, and remember that the seats take up room and that spheres leave gaps between them. Give an order-of-magnitude answer with your assumptions.

Accepted Answer

About a million, within a factor of two either way. The bus. A school bus is roughly 10 m long, 2.5 m wide and 2.5 m high inside: about 62 cubic metres, or 6.2 × 10 to the 7 cubic centimetres. Seats, wheel arches and the engine bulkhead eat perhaps a third of that, leaving about 4 × 10 to the 7 cubic centimetres of usable space. The ball. A golf ball is about 4.3 cm across, so its volume is about 4/3 × pi × 2.15 cubed, roughly 40 cubic centimetres. Divide and correct. 4 × 10 to the 7 / 40 = 1 million balls if they filled space perfectly. Spheres poured randomly fill only about 64 per cent of …

How many golf balls fit in a school bus?

Your answer

Discussion

Learn the concepts

Related questions