Problem StatementWe were given a picture of the 2008 inauguration with large groups of people scattered throughout the National Mall. We were asked to try and estimate the number of people who attended the ceremony.
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ProcessWe started by finding the distance between the Capitol Building and the Washington Monument. We found that the distance in between the two landmarks was around 1.9 miles. We used the Capitol Building as a scale of sorts, to compare it to the people. We found that the Capitol Building is 751' 4" long and 350" across. In the crowd closest to the Capitol Building, we estimated that there was around 262, 850 people. We compared the other groups of people to the large group in front of the Capitol Building, and that is the main method we used to get our answers. We started at the group of people right outside of the Capitol Building and worked our way to the Washington Monument.
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Estimate
According to our calculations, and the method we used, we estimated that there were 1,367,644 people at the Obama Inauguration in 2008.
Habits of a Mathematician
The two Habits of a Mathematician that we used