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A Fermi problem (or Fermi question, Fermi quiz), also known as an order-of-magnitude problem, is an estimation problem in physics or engineering education, designed to teach dimensional analysis or approximation of extreme scientific calculations. Fermi problems are usually back-of-the-envelope calculations.
Scale analysis (or order-of-magnitude analysis) is a powerful tool used in the mathematical sciences for the simplification of equations with many terms. First the approximate magnitude of individual terms in the equations is determined.
An order-of-magnitude estimate of a variable, whose precise value is unknown, is an estimate rounded to the nearest power of ten. For example, an order-of-magnitude estimate for a variable between about 3 billion and 30 billion (such as the human population of the Earth) is 10 billion. To round a number to its nearest order of magnitude, one ...
A random sample of these items is taken and their sequence numbers observed; the problem is to estimate N from these observed numbers. The problem can be approached using either frequentist inference or Bayesian inference, leading to different results.
Perhaps the most influential example of such a calculation was carried out over a period of a few hours by Arnold Wilkins after being asked to consider a problem by Robert Watson Watt. Watt had learned that the Germans claimed to have invented a radio-based death ray, but Wilkins' one-page calculations demonstrated that such a thing was almost ...
The following is a very approximate order-of-magnitude estimate of the likelihood of alignments, assuming a plane covered with uniformly distributed "significant" points. Consider a set of n points in a compact area with approximate diameter L and area approximately L 2 .
A cost estimate is the approximation of the cost of a program, project, or operation. The cost estimate is the product of the cost estimating process. The cost estimate has a single total value and may have identifiable component values. A problem with a cost overrun can be avoided with a credible, reliable, and accurate cost estimate. A cost ...
Factor () Multiple Value Item 0 0 0 Singularity: 10 −35: 1 Planck length: 0.0000162 qm Planck length; typical scale of hypothetical loop quantum gravity or size of a hypothetical string and of branes; according to string theory, lengths smaller than this do not make any physical sense. [1]