Meta-Fermi
A list of Fermi estimation questions about Fermi questions themselves, defended by comparison to Plato.
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Cartoon by Ben Orlin, Math with Bad Drawings. https://cartoons.mathwithbaddrawings.com/2018-08-21-meta-fermi/ (CC BY-NC 4.0)Transcript
"1. How many Fermi questions were answered on Earth yesterday? 2. How many of the answers were correct to within a factor of 2? 3. How many Fermi questions would you need to answer, on average, before you got one exactly right?"
A (holding the list): "You can't write Fermi questions that are all about Fermi questions."
B: "Oh, but when Plato writes philosophy books about how great philosophy is, that's OK?!"