How long does it take a baseball diamond (90 ft on a side) to receive 1 megaton of solar energy?

Question

Neglecting energy absorbed or reflected by Earth's atmosphere, the solar energy hitting 1 square meter of Earth's surface is 1360 J/s (the solar constant). How long does it take a baseball diamond (90 ft on a side) to receive 1 megaton of solar energy? (Hint: A 1 megaton bomb produces about 4 x10^15 J.)
__________years

I would really just appreciate a formula to work it out. I'm not a high school student by the way. I am a 38 year old taking an Astronomy class as part of my core requirements. I graduate next semester. I would really appreciate any help in solving this one.

Answer 1

scienta do you ever say much else besides "this is not the right place"?

men of the cloth should share knowledge instead of silencing people.


wow. we're like twins too. weird.

Answer 2

This question has been asked before, which means your teacher is watching Yahoo!Answers and would be annoyed if we helped you do your homework.

As mentioned before, a "megaton" is a theoretical equivalent in explosive force equal to that produced by the explosion of a million tons of trinitrotoluene. It is not an appropriate unit of measure for solar energy. You should discuss this with your teacher, and see if he or she can come up with a more realistic example.

I will give you credit for having a more sensible scale of units for the amount of energy produced by the bomb. But it's still such a theoretical amount as to be essentially meaningless.

Good luck working this out with your teacher.

Answer 3

Okay, thanks for the additionals and I see that this is not the first time you have posted this question.

Ahhhh. the dreaded Joule. Measuring everything from heat to calories to foot-pound-force to ergs. LOL. Le Systeme international d'unites. (yawn)

Assuming the constant of one sq meter = 1360 Joules per second. Convert 90' sq to meters sq = 8.361

1360 Joules would require 8.361 seconds to cover the field.

Dividing your one megaton number of 4,000,000,000,000,000 by 1360 gives 2,941,176,470,588.235294 seconds

I couldn't find a large enough online calculator so I divide this by the number of seconds in one year (31,556,926) = 93202.24886886116 years

Multiplied by 8.361 = 779,264 years

This is a rough figure as like I stated I couldn't find online calculators to handle the numbers.

That's my guess. You can follow and verify.



LOL Merc - This is not the proper place to have a discussion with you about such matters. Now if you tell me that you are my father things are really going to get wierd. Noted and respectfully appreciated. My communications with yahoo about such seem futile. In the future I will presume that, like myself, nothing is perfect.

Answer 4

"A a million megaton bomb produces approximately 4 1015 J." i don't be attentive to what the area is meant to intend right here. The capability released by making use of the bomb could be many orders of value extra beneficial than 40-one,0.5 J.