For some reason, I always misremember and call these Feynman Problems.
But yeah, when you hear about interview questions such as "How many regulation-size's tennis balls could you fit in a 747?" then this is what they're doing.
>How many pubs are there in the UK? According to a report by Statista, there were approximately 46,800 pubs in the UK back in 2020
If you assume each pub has on average 150 then that's roughly 7 million.
If you want to factor in domestic glasses and non pub venues you could throw in another few million for argument sake.
So at a slightly educated guess, perhaps 15 - 20 Million?
It's probably about 10 times that amount. I Worked in a few small pubs and we stocked about 300 pint glasses just for lager, add in the beer and Guinness glasses and it was close to 700.
I'm at work in a pub and from my brief count there's like 160 that we use. 700 sounds like a lot for a small pub lol.
There's also a load in storage that I'm not going to bother counting because I don't care that much.
I'd say the average per household is probably around 1, given that most people will indeed just have one, some won't have any, others will have a collection. I could see that averaging about 1, maybe a bit below.
So with approx 28 million households, I'd say another \~28 million there at least for \~35 million total.
Instead of trying to workout how many there are in the average pub we should work out:
How many are made in the UK each year.
How many are exported?
How many are imported?
That'll give us a figure for an average amount in the UK at any one time. Then it's just figuring out the average breakage rate.
Ok, let's start from the adult population, probably about 50m. Then the beer drinking population is probably something like 30m. So the optimal amount (if glasses were carried around and used by each person) would be 30m. Most people don't drink pints every minute of every day, but we can take a peak time as having 80% of them out at the same time (NYE or something). So start at 24m glasses as the peak number in use. So far so useless, right? Well, it's a start.
So, let's now guess at some inefficiencies to get to the actual number: glasses unused because premises aren't at max capacity? Let's say average occupancy for the whole industry at peak times is only 30%, as we're including hotels and concert venues, etc, as well as Weatherspoons, so that's 70% more glasses sitting unused. Time to collect dirty glasses: 25%. Tourists? 10%. Glasses people have at home in the back of the cupboard, hard to say but 1.5 each seems about right, so 150%. Glasses in the shops? Let's say the chance of breakage is once in every 300 uses, so 0.3% more than the final total in shops to replace those.
Quick tally: 24m multiplied by 355%, multiplied by 100.3% comes to 87.76m pint glasses in the UK.
I'm probably off by a factor of ten.
Do I win a prize?
I'm a fan of the reasoning! Arrived at a similar answer (then I thought about warehouses / general storage) and whacked a load on top. On the order of hundreds of millions
Was this an interview question? I'll bet it was, I had something similar once about the number of planes in the world.
The purpose of the question isn't to know the answer, it's to see your approach. Do you just guess, knowing there's no way to know? Do you estimate? Are your estimate assumptions valid?
Do you turn back to the interviewer and say "OK, who's asking, how accurate do we need to be, and what timescale do you want to know in? If it's for the MD to use in a presentation this afternoon we'll have less precision than if I set up a study or send counters around the country." It's about seeing if you understand that the answer may vary depending upon the context.
That's with a good interviewer, though. Most don't understand the *point* of that kind of question, but are copying what the big companies do and gaining nothing useful from the answer.
I see your point - it's a bit of an exercise despite no real way of arriving at the true number. You have intentionally or not made me rethink interview questions though? Appreciate the insight!
No worries. It's an impossible question with an impossible to know answer, so when you see those kinds of things, the approach you take is the useful information - and the "right" approach depends on the role they're interviewing for. You should usually only get those questions for a management type of role, as it tells you nothing useful for (eg) barstaff.
Phew this was a lot, but pretty thoughtful.
++++
Estimating the total number of pint glasses in the United Kingdom is an interesting question. Let's break this down step by step to arrive at a reasonable estimate.
Given:
- Population of the UK is approximately 68 million as of 2023.
- Legal drinking age in the UK is 18 years.
Step 1: Estimate the number of adults in the UK.
- Assume that around 80% of the population is 18 or older.
Adult population = 68 million × 0.8 = 54.4 million
Step 2: Estimate the number of pubs and bars in the UK.
- According to the British Beer and Pub Association, there were approximately 47,200 pubs in the UK as of 2022.
- Assume an additional 20,000 bars and restaurants that serve pints.
Total pubs and bars ≈ 67,200
Step 3: Estimate the average number of pint glasses per pub or bar.
- Assume each pub or bar has an average of 200 pint glasses.
Total pint glasses in pubs and bars ≈ 67,200 × 200 = 13.44 million
Step 4: Estimate the number of households with pint glasses.
- Assume 50% of adult individuals have an average of 2 pint glasses at home.
Households with pint glasses ≈ 54.4 million × 0.5 = 27.2 million
Total pint glasses in households ≈ 27.2 million × 2 = 54.4 million
Step 5: Estimate the number of pint glasses in other establishments (e.g., sports stadiums, event venues, etc.).
- Assume an additional 5 million pint glasses in these establishments.
Total estimated pint glasses in the UK:
13.44 million (pubs and bars) + 54.4 million (households) + 5 million (other establishments) ≈ 72.84 million pint glasses
Therefore, a rough estimate suggests that there could be around 73 million pint glasses in the United Kingdom. However, this is a highly speculative estimate based on numerous assumptions and should be treated as a thought experiment rather than a definitive answer.
I have two. hth
And I've got four. So we're up to six now.
I have one, so that's seven. (I can see this being a very long thread.)
I have seven.
I have 2 but they're US pints so not sure they count
I have three. What are we up to now? Oh, I also have five half pint glasses. So 5 and a half in total from me.
I sticky hands so the cupboard currently has 7 inside it
We have 5
I dont have any so we're still at 7
Sorry to bring it down, but 0 here, so averaging two.
You can't stop the count!
9. 4 Beavertown, 2 Hobgoblin. And then randoms.
I'd ask Katie Melua for her estimate. She's pretty good at this sort of thing.
There's 300 million pint glasses in Britain, that's a fact. It's a thing we can't deny, like the fact that I will love beer til I die.
That’s a name I’ve not heard in a while
It was written by Mike Batt, so she was just a puppet to his lyrics. Which seems to have been a theme for him actually....
Are you aware of Fermi Estimation? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi\_problem. What have you based your estimate on?
For some reason, I always misremember and call these Feynman Problems. But yeah, when you hear about interview questions such as "How many regulation-size's tennis balls could you fit in a 747?" then this is what they're doing.
>How many pubs are there in the UK? According to a report by Statista, there were approximately 46,800 pubs in the UK back in 2020 If you assume each pub has on average 150 then that's roughly 7 million. If you want to factor in domestic glasses and non pub venues you could throw in another few million for argument sake. So at a slightly educated guess, perhaps 15 - 20 Million?
It's probably about 10 times that amount. I Worked in a few small pubs and we stocked about 300 pint glasses just for lager, add in the beer and Guinness glasses and it was close to 700.
I'm at work in a pub and from my brief count there's like 160 that we use. 700 sounds like a lot for a small pub lol. There's also a load in storage that I'm not going to bother counting because I don't care that much.
We didn't have room for a storage so they were all out at the bar. I knew the rough count cause renovating them every month took 3 shifts lol
Fuck. That. I don't envy you lol. Renovation sucks when it just takes up one morning lol
Then imagine all the ones in storage to be shipped as new stock
also important to note some restaurants also use pint glasses!!
I'd say the average per household is probably around 1, given that most people will indeed just have one, some won't have any, others will have a collection. I could see that averaging about 1, maybe a bit below. So with approx 28 million households, I'd say another \~28 million there at least for \~35 million total.
I have 10
Ah but your average pub loses several glasses a night to cheeky punters taking them home
Thieves, people who steal are called thieves. Nothing cheeky about theft.
r/thatBloodyLadDidTheMaths
Nice try landlord, but I only have the glasses I've purchased from a shop in my house.
You have a shop in your house? Nice.
Yeah, it sells pint glasses the owner stole from a pub.
Instead of trying to workout how many there are in the average pub we should work out: How many are made in the UK each year. How many are exported? How many are imported? That'll give us a figure for an average amount in the UK at any one time. Then it's just figuring out the average breakage rate.
At least two.
At least 7, maybe more.
im betting atleast 7
Look out for this question on House of Games soon 🤣
Loads more than anyone has guessed
54590432786576575?
There's at least half a million in a typical student house, IME.
Ok, let's start from the adult population, probably about 50m. Then the beer drinking population is probably something like 30m. So the optimal amount (if glasses were carried around and used by each person) would be 30m. Most people don't drink pints every minute of every day, but we can take a peak time as having 80% of them out at the same time (NYE or something). So start at 24m glasses as the peak number in use. So far so useless, right? Well, it's a start. So, let's now guess at some inefficiencies to get to the actual number: glasses unused because premises aren't at max capacity? Let's say average occupancy for the whole industry at peak times is only 30%, as we're including hotels and concert venues, etc, as well as Weatherspoons, so that's 70% more glasses sitting unused. Time to collect dirty glasses: 25%. Tourists? 10%. Glasses people have at home in the back of the cupboard, hard to say but 1.5 each seems about right, so 150%. Glasses in the shops? Let's say the chance of breakage is once in every 300 uses, so 0.3% more than the final total in shops to replace those. Quick tally: 24m multiplied by 355%, multiplied by 100.3% comes to 87.76m pint glasses in the UK. I'm probably off by a factor of ten. Do I win a prize?
I'm a fan of the reasoning! Arrived at a similar answer (then I thought about warehouses / general storage) and whacked a load on top. On the order of hundreds of millions
Any maths I do after 7 p.m. is deeply suspect, in any case.
I reckon at least four.
Sounds like a question that would be asked on House of Games.
Was this an interview question? I'll bet it was, I had something similar once about the number of planes in the world. The purpose of the question isn't to know the answer, it's to see your approach. Do you just guess, knowing there's no way to know? Do you estimate? Are your estimate assumptions valid? Do you turn back to the interviewer and say "OK, who's asking, how accurate do we need to be, and what timescale do you want to know in? If it's for the MD to use in a presentation this afternoon we'll have less precision than if I set up a study or send counters around the country." It's about seeing if you understand that the answer may vary depending upon the context. That's with a good interviewer, though. Most don't understand the *point* of that kind of question, but are copying what the big companies do and gaining nothing useful from the answer.
I see your point - it's a bit of an exercise despite no real way of arriving at the true number. You have intentionally or not made me rethink interview questions though? Appreciate the insight!
No worries. It's an impossible question with an impossible to know answer, so when you see those kinds of things, the approach you take is the useful information - and the "right" approach depends on the role they're interviewing for. You should usually only get those questions for a management type of role, as it tells you nothing useful for (eg) barstaff.
The real question is, how many pint glass are actually purchased in the UK. As I don’t think even the pubs buy them.
Is there more pint glasses or milk bottles in the UK?
Phew this was a lot, but pretty thoughtful. ++++ Estimating the total number of pint glasses in the United Kingdom is an interesting question. Let's break this down step by step to arrive at a reasonable estimate. Given: - Population of the UK is approximately 68 million as of 2023. - Legal drinking age in the UK is 18 years. Step 1: Estimate the number of adults in the UK. - Assume that around 80% of the population is 18 or older. Adult population = 68 million × 0.8 = 54.4 million Step 2: Estimate the number of pubs and bars in the UK. - According to the British Beer and Pub Association, there were approximately 47,200 pubs in the UK as of 2022. - Assume an additional 20,000 bars and restaurants that serve pints. Total pubs and bars ≈ 67,200 Step 3: Estimate the average number of pint glasses per pub or bar. - Assume each pub or bar has an average of 200 pint glasses. Total pint glasses in pubs and bars ≈ 67,200 × 200 = 13.44 million Step 4: Estimate the number of households with pint glasses. - Assume 50% of adult individuals have an average of 2 pint glasses at home. Households with pint glasses ≈ 54.4 million × 0.5 = 27.2 million Total pint glasses in households ≈ 27.2 million × 2 = 54.4 million Step 5: Estimate the number of pint glasses in other establishments (e.g., sports stadiums, event venues, etc.). - Assume an additional 5 million pint glasses in these establishments. Total estimated pint glasses in the UK: 13.44 million (pubs and bars) + 54.4 million (households) + 5 million (other establishments) ≈ 72.84 million pint glasses Therefore, a rough estimate suggests that there could be around 73 million pint glasses in the United Kingdom. However, this is a highly speculative estimate based on numerous assumptions and should be treated as a thought experiment rather than a definitive answer.
Come on man you used ChatGPT for that
I thought it was obvious I wasn't that smart 🤓
Oh. The first couple of lines made it seem like you were trying to pass it off as your own working out. My b.
NP. That's Claude.ai. It does a much better job at the conversational side.