Friday, October 13, 2006

 

Coins in jars?


You have a gallon container (cylindrical bucket) filled with quarters and an equivalent gallon container filled with dimes. Assuming that you tossed the coins randomly into the containers, which has more money?

Comments:
The one on the left, because I throw with my right hand.
 
this feels like a skill testing question....shouldn't the one with quarters have close to precisely 2.5 times the value than the dimes? Assuming the value of each coin is even close to accurate...25 cents worth of nickel alloy should have 2.5 times the volume of 10 cents worth of nickel alloy.

Damn! Now I'm going to want to know the 'empirical' answer to this question!

Although I'd like to take up Cloudbusting too.
 
amelopsis: your logic is too simplistic: dimes are smaller than quarters and the value is not based on the metal's value but on the face value.

i found a good analysys here http://www.jhu.edu/~jhumag/0904web/letters.html
 
Assuming a dime has a height of 1/32 of an inch and a diameter of 11/16, each dime will take up 0.01159 cubic inches or 0.001159 cubic inches per cent.

Assuming a quarter has a height of 1/16 of an inch and a diameter of 15/16, each quarter will take up 0.04312 cubic inches or 0.001724 cubic inches per cent.

Since the dimes take up less room per cent (assuming there are no spaces between each dime) the gallon of dimes will be worth more.
Gallon of Dimes: $1993.10
Gallon of Quarters: $1340.00
 
If you are looking for the amount of money in the buckets, there are more dimes than quarters based on their respective sizes, therefore, there is more money in the bucket with dimes.
 
nice question, i like it. very clever... you can also check my value of coins directory. you will like it too.
 
I calculate the volume of $1.00 in dimes to be 3401.06 mm^3 and $1.00 in quarters to be 3233.08 mm^3. However, I would guess that because of the relative bulkiness of the quarters, their will be more wasted space in between the quarters than the dimes. So which bucket is worth more? No clue.
 
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