Estimation · Chapter 16

Per-Person, Per-Day Sense Check

Divide a big claim by the people and the days. If the human-sized version is absurd, so is the claim.

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Opens on Chapter 16’s example: a bakery’s claim of 2 million cupcakes in a year, from one shop open 360 days, 12 hours a day.

Enter your numbers, then press Calculate.
From the book, Chapter 16. 2 million cupcakes from one shop is 5,556 a day, 463 an hour, 7.7 a minute: one every 7.8 seconds, all day, every day. 9 million cups of coffee across 30,000 people is 300 a year each, 0.82 a day: believable.

Rounding is half up, the way the book rounds. Numbers can be typed as 1,450, $38, 12%, 1/20, 2.5 million or 3 × 10⁷. Everything stays in your browser: no sign-up, nothing stored or sent.