Marble Estimation

Estimating Marbles in a Beaker

On the first day of class, the class guessed how many marbles were contained in a large glass beaker. Now you are going to make a better (more scientific) estimate of the number of marbles in that beaker.

Below are given the dimensions of the beaker (diameter and height), as well as the diameter of a marble. With this information, make a better guess at how many marbles are contained in the beaker. Diameter of beaker base: 127 mm.
Height of beaker: 188 mm.
Average diameter of a marble: 14 mm.

The point of the assignment is not just to get the right number of marbles, the point is to explain how you approached the problem and got your answer. What approximations or assumptions did you make? Why did you make those approximations?

In one half to one full page:

  1. Explain your Method for coming up with the number of marbles
  2. Include any approximations or assumptions you made
  3. Include all calculations you did (after all you have real numbers now)
  4. Include the result you get for the number of marbles in the beaker
Be sure to think about how the marble fit in the beaker. Why is a simple calculation and division of the two volumes unlikely to give you the right answer?