How long would it take the world-record water speed drinker to drink all the bottles of water sold in the US in one day?

Name: Alexandra Jackson

1.  Background Story
The Fermi problem I created was 'How long (just in solid time) would it take for the world record water drinker to drink all of the bottles of water sold in the US in one day' I created this problem because it seems to fit the criteria pretty well! It's creative, involves large numbers, and has a lot of steps to solving it. Follow along and let's find the answer!



2.  Ask Yourself This:

1. How many bottles of water are sold in the US in one day?
2. What is the world record water drinker's speed?
3. How many seconds are in a day?




3.  Helpful Hints:
a. There are 86400 seconds in one day.
The number of bottles of water consumed in one second in the US is 1500. http://t.treehugger.com/treehugger/#!/entry/the-us-consumes-1500-plastic-water-bottles-every-second-a,51e27c9387443d6c8e596af5    There are 86400 seconds in a day.
       What's the world record water drinking rate? The fastest time to drink 500ml water is 2.35 seconds, achieved by Lorcan Carroll (Ireland), in Glenageary, Ireland, on 16 April 2012.  http://challengers.guinnessworldrecords.com/challenges/1-fastest-time-to-drink-500ml-water
1000 mL is 1 liter.
b.  At least one piece of information used must be from your estimation and/or experimentation and/or modeling.  In other words, data you came up with.  Include the method by which you estimated/experimented along with your results.




4.  Construct a Formula:
I have now found out that there are 86400 seconds in a day. I know that 1500 water bottles are sold in the US every second. I need to multiply those numbers to find how many water bottles are sold in the US in one day. I know there are 500 ml of water in the average water bottle. The world record is 2.35 seconds to drink 500 ml. So I need to multiply 2.35 by the number of water bottles sold in one day and that will be my answer!
86400 secs * 1500 bottles= x
2.35 secs * x= My answer


5.  Messy Math:
86400 secs x 1500 bottles = 129,600,000 bottles sold in one day
There are that many water bottles sold in one day.
129,600,000 bottles x 2.35 seconds = 304,560,000 seconds
304,560,000 seconds
3.04560000
(Moved the decimal point eight places)
3.0456
3.0456 x 10^8 seconds
One of my calculations before was finding how many seconds are in a day. 60*60=3600
3600*24=86400
86400
8.64 * 10^4 seconds are in a day
6.  Answer:
My answer is: it would take the world record water drinker (in speed) 3.0456 x 10^8 seconds, or 3525 days, or 9.651 years of time to drink all the bottles of water sold in the US in one day.