1QUESTION 1 OF 3
Answer & explanation
The official answer, with Fermi’s reasoning step by step.
Answer & explanation
Official answer
99
hours
How to estimate it
Fermi’s official “Napkin math”
The Burj Khalifa is about half a mile tall, roughly 2,700 feet. How fast is a snail? Watch one and it covers maybe a foot every couple of minutes, which is about 30 feet an hour.
- Burj Khalifa height
- ~2,700 ft
- Snail pace
- ÷ 30 ft/hour
- 2,700 ÷ 30
- ≈ 90 hours
The Burj Khalifa is about 830 meters tall. How fast is a snail? Watch one and it covers maybe 10 meters in an hour.
- Burj Khalifa height
- ~830 m
- Snail pace
- ÷ 10 m/hour
- 830 ÷ 10
- ≈ 83 hours
Rounded assumptions may give a slightly different estimate. The official answer above is the game’s reference value.
Source calculation & reference
- Burj Khalifa height
- 828 m (2,717 ft)
- Record snail pace (Guinness: Verne, 31 cm in 2 min 13 s)
- ≈ 0.233 cm/s
- 828 m ÷ 0.00233 m/s
- ≈ 355,000 seconds
- ≈
- 99 hours (~4 days)
Reference cited by Fermi: Guinness World Records fastest land snail · Burj Khalifa official height
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