I'm a math person and the other day I heard someone compare the amount of oil spilled into the gulf to the comparable amount of oil it would be in a bathtub. I was skeptical of the numbers and since I love to work with numbers, I thought I would do my own calculation.
Now nothing about these findings should be construed to minimize the financial, emotional and environmental impact of this spill on the people in the gulf or the nation as a whole. Eleven lives were lost, thousands of jobs were lost, billions of dollars of economic damage has been inflicted and the environmental impact is huge. But nevertheless, there needs to be some perspective on the amount of oil which has leaked into gulf.
So here goes the math part. According to CNN on 7/28/10, the total amount of oil leaked was 220 million gallons. According to the website http://www.gulfbase.org/facts.php, the volume of the gulf of Mexico is 643 quadrillion gallons. That's 643 with 15 zeros after it.
Before I go on, we need a little math lesson for those who forgot their high school math. In order to keep from using such long numbers, I'm going to use notation that just tells us how far to move the decimal point one way or another. For example, instead of writing 220,000,000 for the number of gallons of oil, I'll use 2.2E8. That means, to see the actual number you would move the decimal point 8 places to the right and fill in zeros along the way. If the number after the E is negative, like this 5.1E-2, that means move the decimal to the left. In my example the number would actually be .051 because I had to move the decimal 2 places to the left.
So here goes the math. If you want to see the bottom line, go down to the very bottom. Otherwise follow along with me on my math and maybe you'll find I made a mistake along the way somewhere.
Amount of oil spilled =2.2E8 gallons
Water in gulf = 6.43E17 gallons
Water in my bathtub when filled to the brim = 22 in. x 15 in. x 50 in = 67 gallons
Fraction of oil in the gulf= 2.2E8 / 6.43E17 = 3.4E-10
Use that fraction to figure gallons of equivalent oil in the bathtub = 3.4E-10 x 67 gal = 2.3E-8 gal
Change that to quarts by multiplying by 4 because 4 quarts in a gallon = 9.1E-8 quarts
Change that to pints by multiplying by 2 = 1.8E-7
Change that to teaspoons by multiplying by 96 (there are 96 tsp in a pint) = 1.7E-5 tsp
Change that to drops by multiplying by 120 (there are about 120 drops in a tsp) = 2.1E-3 drops
That last number turned into a number you would recognize is .0021 drops of oil. That is about 2 thousandths of a drop! That means you take a drop of oil, divide it up into a 1000 little droplets and use 2 of those in your bathtub. That is how much oil proportionately has spilled into the Gulf of Mexico.
No wonder CNN is reporting that they can't find the oil.
Remember what I said at the outset. This in no way minimizes the impact that this spill has had on the lives and economies of people. But let's also remember how big the earth is and let's remember how big our God is that even though we have created a huge problem here, He has created a world that is capable of handling much of the abuse that we in our ignorance and sinfulness heap on it.
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