The engineer Leonardo Cremonesi27, participated in the painting “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” shown on Domingão com Huck, on TV Globo, last Sunday (22).
He was on a streak of correct answers and was eliminated on the 13th question, just before the so-called “million question”, which gives the participant the chance to win the maximum prize of R$1 million.
He is from Franca, in the interior of São Paulo. If he had gotten the astronomy question right, he would have been just two answers away from competing for the main prize. However, when he made a mistake, he returned home with R$150,000.
The one that eliminated it was: “How many Earths are needed to fill the total volume of our Sun?” The alternatives were:
a) 1 million and 100 thousand
b) 1 million and 200 thousand
c) 1 million and 300 thousand
d) 1 million and 400 thousand
Under pressure and worth R$300,000, a step that would bring him very close to the R$1 million prize, the engineer opted for the letter D, responding that 1 million and 400 thousand Earths would fit inside the Sun. The correct alternative, however, was the letter C: 1 million and 300 thousand.
The explanation involves calculating volumes. To find out how many times the Earth fits inside the Sun, you need to divide the volume of the Sun by the volume of the Earth.
The volume of the Earth is approximately 1.083 × 10¹² km³ (1.083 trillion cubic kilometers). The volume of the Sun is about 1.412 × 10¹⁸ km³.
When dividing 1.412 × 10¹⁸ by 1.083 × 10¹², the result is approximately 1.304 × 10⁶. This equates to 1,304,000. In textbooks, this value is usually rounded to 1,300,000, that is, 1 million and 300 thousand Earths.
The difference between the chosen answer and the correct one was around 100 thousand units, a small error in proportion to the total number, but decisive in the context of the game.
