What is the Earth's orbital speed around the sun?

[rhenretta]

I was watching a documentary a couple nights ago, and it caused me to start doing random calculations. Granted the information is easily accessible online, but what is the fun in that.

Here is the problem

Given light takes 8 minutes to reach the Earth from the sun, at what speed is the Earth orbiting the sun.

show your work

 

[Arch2008]

You mean pi times the diameter to get the circumference of a circle or pi times 16 light minutes would be the distance roughly traveled by the Earth in a year.
This comes out to about one third of a light second per hour, or:
100,000 km/hr.

 

[rhenretta]

far too quick, now I need to come up with another problem (admittedly, I was tempted to put it in general math)

 

[Arch2008]

2EZ
I'll give someone else a try. (I was only off by 7,218 km/hr.)

 

[rhenretta]

Technically, your answer assumes a perfectly circular orbit, but given the lack of additional information I can't fault you there

 

[Arch2008]

Yes. its pretty satisfying that with total approximations I get an answer that's 93% right.

 

[rhenretta]

I thought the same thing, being an imperialist scum, I did my calculations to mph, and came up with over 64,000 mph. It wasn't until yesterday I actually verified my answer (67,000 mph). There is something very satisfying about math

 

[rhenretta]

And because it is such an appropriate reward for the correct answer:

 

[Arch2008]

Thank you so much. I had never seen that before. Makes me wonder what might be in my fridge.
...and now for something completely different.

 

[rhenretta]

Oh, now I feel bad for you ;-), how about this one

 

[Arch2008]

I'm afraid not.
Now I feel bad for me.