Number of cherry petals

To see a person’s ability, some people ask, “How many petals does a cherry tree have?” Fermi estimation.

Response to this

• A: I stop thinking when I see a problem I don’t know the answer to.
• B: Decompose the problem and try to derive an estimate I guess I’m trying to see the difference.

However, there is a third pattern of behavior.

• C: Search if Existing answers exists Doing this shows that an actual survey was conducted in the past at “Trivia no Izumi” (Fountain of Trivia). A 32-year-old Someiyoshino tree was wrapped in a net before flowering, and all petals were counted one by one, with the result of 593,345 petals.

Wouldn’t it be preferable to use this past experimental data to answer, “It would be approximately 600,000 pieces,” rather than B?

Not looking for existing experimental results is due to “assumption” that there will be no existing experimental results.

relevance - There will be power.

• Mighty driving

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