Real-Life Math
You are a building demolition expert who specializes in implosions.
Instead of bringing in cranes and wrecking balls to demolish buildings, you
use dynamite.
Your team drills holes into the columns supporting the
building and places sticks of dynamite into the holes. The dynamite is wired
to a blasting box. When the control button on the box is pushed, the dynamite
explodes.
The pieces of dynamite are set to go off at different times.
The sticks of dynamite near the bottom of the building go off first. As the
building begins to fall, the rest of the dynamite charges are set off. Gravity
pulls the crumbling building downward into itself. The entire process is over
in less than a minute.
It is a very demanding job. The dynamite must
be strategically placed to make sure the building explodes inward, and not
outwards. A slight miscalculation could cause damage to nearby buildings,
or worse, injuries to people.
You have been hired to implode a set
of office towers. Each tower is 16 storeys high. Before you can begin working
on the site, you need to figure out how much dynamite you will need.
Your
first step is to check out the architectural plans for the 2
buildings. Next, you pay a visit to the site. After thoroughly examining the
interior and exterior of the towers, you decide that the 1st, 2nd, 4th and
6th floors will be the "shot floors" -- the floors where the dynamite is placed.
You
order your team to drill 5 holes in each column on the 1st and 2nd floors,
and 3 holes in the columns on the 4th and 6th floors. One-third of a pound
of dynamite will be placed in each hole.
There are 32 supporting columns
running up through the interior of the building. What is the total amount
of dynamite you will need?