Will anyone ever know the answer??

Question

in the whole world, are there more single grains of sand than cube cm of sea??

Answer 1

Let's start counting... =]

Answer 2

The volumeof the world's oceans is about 1.37X10^9 cubic kilometres (reference: http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/Syed...  )

This is 1.37X10^9X10^15 cubic cm = 1.37X10^24 cc.

In a litre of fine beach sand, there are about 5X10^7 grains of sand (I had to work this out once).  In a cubic kilometre of beach sand, there would be 5X10^7X10^3X10^9 grains of sand

= 5X10^19 grains of sand.

Therefore, for the number of grains of sand to exceed the number of cc of water; we need (1.37X10^24)/(5X10^19) cubic kilometres of sand.

=0.275X10^5  = 2.75X10^4 cubic kilometres of sand.

Let's assume an average  beach is 100 metres wide by 100 metres deep..  For each kiulometre of beach, we have one hundredth of a cubic kilometre of sand.  Therefore, we need 2.75X10^4X10^2 kilometres of beach., or 2.75 million kilometres of beach.

According to this list:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cou...  

There are about 1 million kilometres of coastline around the oceans.  Of course; not all of it is becah; but most beaches are a lot larger than 100 metres wide by 100 metres deep.

It would appear that the worlds beaches do not quite contain enough grains of sand; but it would be within an order of magnitude of the required number.

When we take other areas into consideration, the number of grains of sand becomes much larger.  The Sahara Desert alone comprises 9 million square kilometres , and would contain more grains of sand than all the world's beaches.  The Australain interior adds a further 5 million square kilometres of arid lands, and there are many other areas of sandy desert.  As an approximation, the sand contained in all the beaches and deserts matches roughly the amount of cubic centimetres in the oceans.

Then we have to account for the sand on the contineltal shelf areas of the sea floor: varying up to 100 kilometres or more wide; over the 1 million kilometres of coastline.  This would multiply the volume iof sand in all the beaches by a factor of 100.  

In addition, sand on the continental areas is not limited to beaches and deserts.

Taking all these into consideration, it seems that the grains of sand outnumber the cubic centimetres of water by a factor of at least 100.

Answer 3

No, because it's very complicated