How many baseball are in this bucket?

 

Dan Meyer (@ddmeyer) asked me for this picture somewhat relating to this post from a year or so ago. Once I tweeted the picture, it got the attention of a few others who simply wanted to guess how many baseballs were in it. I had forgotten how engaging a “who can guess the closest amount of…” questions can be.

So? How many you think?

Also, how can we use this in a math classroom? it’s tricky to use as a spheres-inside-of-a-cylinder problem simply because of the non-uniform amount of empty space between the baseballs. It makes the answer of actual baseballs less than the theoretical “volume of bucket divided by volume of baseballs” solution.

But does that mean it can’t be used? What do you think? Chime in.

 

Also, if you want to see how many baseball are in the bucket, then see for yourself.