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Fermi problems

How many life-bearing exoplanets are likely to be detected with the next space telescope? How many bananas would you need to encircle the Earth? Such complex questions can be answered with surprising accuracy by treating them as Fermi problems

The terms in bold link to topics in the AQA, Edexcel, OCR, WJEC and CCEA A-level specifications, as well as the IB, Pre-U and SQA exam specifications.

This article shows how estimating the value of quantities can lead to a solution to a complex problem, which is usually accurate to the nearest order of magnitude.

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