Jeff Atwood (alias
Coding Horror) wants us to answer a
simple quiz about estimates. It's not about how much you know, but rather how you proceed with estimates. I've decided to play the game and post my estimates here, but don't look before reading
his post and making your own estimates.
Tomorrow, Jeff will post the answers, with its explanations about what this quiz is about. I'll follow-up with how I proceeded, and what I've learned.
My answers:
Surface temperature of the sun: between 5000 and 15000°K
Latitude of Shanghai: between 20 and 45°N
Area of the Asian continent: between 50000 and 100000 km²
The year of Alexander the Great's birth: between 1000 and 1400
Total value of U.S. currency in circulation in 2004: between 1 and 1000 trillion $
Total volume of the Great Lakes: between 15000 and 30000 km³
Worldwide box office receipts for the movie Titanic: between 100 and 300 million $
Total length of the coastline of the Pacific Ocean: between 10000 and 20000 km
Number of book titles published in the U.S. since 1776: between 100000 and 400000
Heaviest blue whale ever recorded: between 30 and 50 metric tons