True story: In a tough astronomy Oral Exam, my grinning professors posed this problem:
"How would you determine the density of Jupiter using only a pair of binoculars? Assume you don't know the planet's distance."
"Umm..." But, to my surprise, I figured it out.

Once outside the exam room, I boasted of my accomplishment to my friend Rico. "Impossible!" he proclaimed. I bet him 10$ and won. How did I do it?

I see I used pi*r^3 / 3 for the volume of the sphere instead of 4*pi*r^3 / 3. I'll try to follow this through later when I have more time.

Posted by Charlie on 2018-07-05 15:55:18