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Fun With Fundamentals: Problem 224

April 1, 2000
Will the night crew have a mess on its hands? You tell us according to this month's problem submitted by Paul Gray of Stevensville, Mich

Fish tail
Problem 224
– Will the night crew have a mess on its hands? You tell us according to this month's problem submitted by Paul Gray of Stevensville, Mich.

During their break one evening at the Spendmore Mall, Phil T. Durdee, the janitor, and S. Lacker, the night guard, decided to go fishing – in a row boat on the gold fish pond. As they were about to drop anchor – a 5- gallon bucket filled with concrete – Phil T. noticed that the water level was just fractions of an inch from overflowing. "Wait," he yelled, "Don't drop the anchor or we'll have a flood on our hands, and I don't feel like mopping tonight."

"Oh, there's plenty of room," Lacker retorted as he launched the bucket. Will Phil need his mop as he predicted, or is Lacker actually right for a change? Disregard the ripples caused by throwing in the anchor.

Solution to March's problem 223- If you answered – 40°, you know how to balance the scales, here's how the students got through the experiment:

Since either temperature scale gives the same result, there must be a point where Celcius and Farenheit measurements coincide numerically.

Since:

C = 5 (F - 32)
9

and we know that the value of C must be equal to the value of F:

F = 5 (F - 32)
9

Therefore,

F = -40

Much to her dismay, this chemistry class breezed through Fahr-Inhyte's favorite experiment.

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