Picture this – you’re in a bustling city, London, to be precise, with a pickle in hand 🥒. Now imagine every pickle consumed in London over the span of a year, lined up end to end. Just how far would that string of pickles stretch? It might seem a whimsical, even absurd question, but humor me for a moment, because finding the answer is a journey that challenges our perceptions of scale, and stretches our mathematical muscles.
Hello there 👋 and welcome the fourth post in the series on guesstimation where we tackle seemingly impossible problems using the power of approximation, logic, and a sprinkling of creativity.
Just like last time, we’ve got a new tool to play with - the geometric mean - and it’s going to help you grapple with that universal “I have no idea” reflex. You know the one – that moment when you’re faced with a problem so immense or bizarre that you want to throw your hands up and surrender to the impossible 😫. No longer. The geometric mean will change how you view problems, tackling them from new angles, and seeing potential solutions where before you only saw dead-ends.
And here’s the big secret: it’s not all about pickles 😉. This exploration forms the foundation for some truly profound inquiries. Today, it’s about food – specifically pickles. But next time, we’ll be exploring if we could grow our own food, touching on sustainability and self-sufficiency, topics increasingly vital in our ever-changing world.
Ready for the adventure? We’re off on a whimsical guesstimation journey that just might change the way you look at pickles – and numbers – forever!