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Fermi Estimates - LessWrong

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Just before the Trinity test, Enrico Fermi decided he wanted a rough estimate of the blast's power before the diagnostic data came in. So he dropped…

x Fermi Estimates — LessWrong Fermi Estimation Probability & Statistics Frontpage 121 Fermi Estimates by lukeprog 11th Apr 2013 16 min read 110 121 Just before the Trinity test , Enrico Fermi decided he wanted a rough estimate of the blast's power before the diagnostic data came in. So he dropped some pieces of paper from his hand as the blast wave passed him, and used this to estimate that the blast was equivalent to 10 kilotons of TNT. His guess was remarkably accurate for having so little data: the true answer turned out to be 20 kilotons of TNT. Fermi had a knack for making roughly-accurat

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