On January 1, 2004, the population of the United States was 292,287,454.
The U.S. is recording a birth every 8 seconds, a death every
13 seconds, and adding an immigrant every 25 seconds.
Based on this data, determine how many seconds (to the nearest
hundredth of a second) that it takes for the U.S. population
to increase by one person.
Solution to the Problem:
The answer is 11.35 seconds.
Find the lowest common denominator for 8, 13, and 25 -- the
LCD is 2600.
So, in 2600 seconds, there are 325 births, 200 deaths, and
104 immigrants added. This is a net result of 325 - 200 +
104 = 229 persons added to the population every 2600 seconds.
Dividing 2600 by 229 yields 1 person added every 11.3537 seconds.
Keith Mealy sent in the following:
Or as Red Skelton once said, "Somewhere in the US, a
woman is having a baby every 8 seconds. We have to
find her and stop her."
Correctly solved by:
| 1. Walt Arrison | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| 2. Keith Mealy | Cincinnati, Ohio |
| 3.John Funk | Ventura, California |
| 4. Akash Patel | Columbus, Georgia |
| 5. Bill Funk | San Antonio, Texas |
| 6. Richard Johnson | La Jolla, California |
| 7. James Alarie | University of Michigan -- Flint, Flint, Michigan |
| 8. Matthew Reames | Roanoke, Virginia |
| 9. Dave Smith | Toledo, Ohio |
| 10. David & Judy Dixon | Bennettsville, South Carolina |
| 11. Shannon Bagshaw | Winchester, Virginia |
| 12. Jeffrey Gaither | Winchester, Virginia |
| 13. Kristofer Friman | Tullängensskolan, Sweden |
| 14. Viktor Bergqvist | Tullängsskolan,Sweden |
| 15. Eweymae | ---------- |