I’m not quite sure how I managed to be off by .090" Might as well be a mile.
With the new numbers, the cubic volume of the dime is 0.0248 in^3, very close to half the volume of the nickel. Taking the next step, Dimes are ~403 cents/in^3 and nickels are ~95 cents/in^3. So it looks like a half barrel of dimes is still about twice is valuable as a full barrel of nickels.
So I guess I should have taken the half barel after all. I guess that’s the difference between precision and accuracy… :smack:
The emphasized sentence is a weak logical step, it seems to me. Depending on the size and shape of the dime, it’s not guaranteed that there are more dimes than half the full barrel of nickels… if the dimes are a little smaller and much more awkwardly shaped, there might not even be as many.
Given that dimes and nickels are the same overall shape (highly flattened cylinders,) I think you can make a convincing argument that there are at least as many dimes as half the nickels, and therefore that the dimes are at least as valuable. To prove anything further, you kinda need to go to the maths.
Oooh, interesting. I tend to associate those terms, (dodecahedron, tetrahedron, icosahedron, octahedron) so strongly with the platonic solids that I never even thought about irregular solids.
I’m with John on this. Unless I’m totally missing something. Which is certainly possible. I don’t know how to write a math formula for it, but logic says the dimnes win.
Pretend that nickles and dimes are exactly the same size coin.
Pretend that a full barrel hold 1,000 coins (that’s one small barrel, but bear with me).
A full barrel of nickels would be 1,000 coins at $0.05 each, or $50.
A half barrel of dimes would be 500 coins at $0.10 each, or $50.
So only in the case of the two coins being the same size would the value of both barrels be the same.
But dimes are clearly much smaller than nickles, so a half barrel of dimes would be much more than 500 coins. Which means that the half barrel would have a much higher value.
(If I missed something, go easy on me. I ain’t had no fancy book larnin’)
I agree. There’s more chance we could move the barrel ourselves, rather than have to cough up a few bucks hiring someone to help us. 'Course, I dunno… I bet even a half barrel of dimes is still pretty heavy…