Sometime this past winter, I was in a snowball fight... and I had two left when we had to call it quits. As it happened, they were both spheres and one had exactly twice the diameter as the other.

I left the two on the ground, when we quit... and the weather started to get warmer. The snowballs started to melt. The melting only occurred at their surface, so the speed at which the balls melted was proportional to only the surface of the (remainder of the) snowballs.

How much (volume) was left of the small snowball when half the volume of the larger had melted?

(In reply to re: solution by Thalamus)

Saying "the speed at which the balls melted was proportional to only the surface" is the same as saying Rate=k*cm³/s/cm²  Reducing fractions, we get Rate=k*cm/s, which translates to the radius of each snowball decreasing at a constant rate.

Posted by Tristan on 2004-06-14 13:56:51