|
The Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is the tallest building in the world since 2009. Its total height is 829.8 meters or 2,722 feet. Its weight is also impressive at 990 million pounds.
Completed in 2009 (construction began in 2004), the cost to build the Burj Khalifa is 1.5 billion USD. If a penny weighs 0.088 ounce, what is the weight ratio of the Burj Khalifa to all the pennies it cost to build it? (This problem is inspired by Amplify Education's 8th grade math curriculum.) |
On July 9, 2017, Josef Zellner and his friends in Pilsting, Germany, cooked up the largest burger on record, weighing in at 1,164 kg (2,566 lb).
McDonald's Big Mac weighs 240 grams (8.5 oz) and costs $3.99 in 2021. If the unit cost of the largest burger made is the same as the Big Mac's, how much would it cost? |
The Big Rocking Horse -- located on the side of the road in Gumeracha, Australia -- opened to the public in 1981. It stands 60 feet (18.3 m) tall.
A toy rocking horse, like the one pictured, made by labebe™, stands 26.5 inches. If a child with height of 40 inches (about 100 cm) can ride this toy, then proportionately, how tall could a "person" be riding on the Big Rocking Horse? |
The blue whale is an endangered species, its population is between 10,000 and 25,000. It is the largest animal on the planet, weighing as much as 200 tons. It needs to eat 4 tons of krill each day.
One species of krill, the Antarctic krill, is one of the most abundant animals, estimated to be around 400 trillion individuals. Its lifespan can be up to six years. If one krill weighs 2 grams (0.071 oz), how many krill would make up 4 tons? |
In 2021, Coca-Cola Company sells over 1.9 billion servings of their drinks each day worldwide. A serving is 20 ounces.
A standard bathtub holds roughly 80 gallons (302 liters) of water. How many bathtubs would be filled with Coca-Cola drinks sold every day worldwide? (Thank you to Marcel Arsenault for submitting this question.) |
As of September 13, 2021, the number of people in the United States who are fully vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine is 178,692,875. This represents 53.8% of the population.
The vaccines were paid for with taxpayer dollars and will be given to all people living in the United States, regardless of insurance or immigration status. Let's say the cost is $20 per dose, and that "fully vaccinated" means two doses per person. What is the total cost to vaccinate everyone living in the United States based on the figures above? |
Thomas D. Seeley discusses pollen load size in his book, The Wisdom of the Hive. On average, a bee collects about 15mg of pollen on a single foraging trip, with multiple trips possible per day. Because a colony typically possesses several thousand foragers and each one can conduct multiple collecting trips each day, the total quantity of supplies assembled annually by a colony is impressive.
Estimates vary, but on average a colony extracts from its environment each year some 20 kg of pollen. How many trips are made by the bees each year to collect 20 kg of pollen? (Thank you to Marcel te Bokkel for submitting this question.) |
There are about 10 quadrillion ants alive at any one time. This is about 1 million ants for every human in the world.
Ants are super strong! They can carry 50 times their own body weight. Let's say that the average human weighs 140 pounds, how many tons can a human carry if it had the strength of an ant? |
Saffron is the world's most expensive spice by weight, costing around $5,000 per kilogram. Iran produces about 90% of the world's saffron.
The saffron stigmas must be picked by hand. It takes some 440,000 stigmas to make 1 kilogram, requiring about 40 hours of labor. A person works 40 hours per week to harvest 1 kilogram of saffron and is paid $20 per hour to do so. Comparing the weekly wage earned by this person and the cost per kilogram, what is the percent markup? |
Jesse Castenda (USA) holds the current record for walking the greatest distance of 142 miles 440 yards in 24 hours. He did this in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on September 18-19, 1976. (Pictured is Mr. Castenda, age 81, October 2020.)
A football field measures 120 yards long. What was Jesse's walking pace in yards per minute? How many lengths of the football field did he walk? |