Hey everyone, this is not so much a standard brainteaser as it is a real world application of logic and math. Without further ado-
Question:
How would you calculate the total surface area of all the windows on a typical New York City subway train?
The steps you would take to answer this question matter more than the actual number.
Answer:
This is how I would approach the question:
Identify a subway train that is representative of a "typical NYC subway train."
Identify the different types of windows on the body of that train, eg. door windows, side windows, smaller side windows.
Found out how many of each type of window a single car contains.
Estimate the respective surface areas of each type of window.
Calculate the surface area of all the windows on a car.
Find the average number of cars on a single train.
Estimate the surface area on the head of a train (assuming that it's different from the cars that make up the body).
Estimate the surface on the back.
Surface Area of Windows on a car * number of cars + surface area of the back car of the train + surface area of the head of the train= total surface area of the train?
Does this logic seem sound? Would you approach the problem differently?
