Does anybody know how many pennies are in a 5 gallon water bottle when it is full?

Question

also, how much are the pennies in dollars?

i have a 5 gallons sparklettes bottle that is filled up with pennies. how much in dollars do i have, and where can i cash them in?

Answer 1

You can't get this figure exactly - it can vary based on how packed-in the pennies are, and on the shape of the bottle. A "real world" approach can only tell you how well packed in the pennies are relative to the shape of the container. In different containers, and under different circumstances, they pack themselves in differently (not to mention accounting for randomness).

You can compute the maximum though. See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_penny
d = 19.05mm
h = 1.55mm

V = π 9.75² × 1.55
V approx = 462.90386 mm³

There are 3785411.8 mm³ in a gallon.
http://www.google.com/search?q=1+gal+in+mm%5E3

Thus the maximum number of pennies is:

total volume / volume of a penny =

3785411.8 / 462.90386 = 8177.53345

So 8177 pennies at most, per gallon, so multiply by 5.

408.85 pennies, which is $408.85.

Since they don't fit in there perfectly though, you are really looking at less. I would estimate that they pack about 80% efficiently, giving you about 32700 pennies, or $327.

IN RESPONSE TO YOUR ADDITIONAL INFO:

Okay, you didn't tell us you HAD the pennies. Weigh it on a scale. One penny is 2.5 g = 0.00551155655 lbs.

That means there are 181 pennies per pound. Find the weight as best you can and multiply by 181. Just drop it on a scale or something. Then to get dollars, divide by 100.

My guess is you have about 30-35lbs of pennies. Say you have 35. Then you have 181×35 = 6335 pennies = $63.35.

You can ignore the weight of the milk jug, which probably weights the same as a few pennies at most. It might throw your calculations off by 10 cents or something negligible, but so will the inaccuracy of any scale you have lying around the house.

And please don't try to calculate the weight of a penny on your own. It's given by the source I linked to, and no household scale can accurately measure a single penny!!

Answer 2

There are 100 pennies in a dollar.

Do a real world approach. Get a standard cup measure and count how many pennies go in the cup.

There are 16 cups in a gallon and 80 cups in 5 gallons.

Once you figure out how many pennies fit in that cup you can multiply that number by 80 and have a good estimate. Divide that number by 100 to get dollars.

Answer 3

You could dump the pennies out, weigh the bottle, weigh one penny, fill the bottle back up, weigh the bottle+pennies, subtract the weight of the bottle, then divide by the weight of the penny and you would get the total number of coins.

Answer 4

it depends on the shape of the bottle because the shape of penny is constant.Here the questioner did not specify the shape of the bottle as it has many variety shapes which can contain 5 gallon water.

Answer 5

Good question! I'm just answering so I can come back and check.... I filled one of these up. before I could count it out someone broke in and stole it along with other stuff.