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Sunday, October 25, 2015

How many Ferrero Rocher do you need to build the Pyramids at Giza?

My wife and I went to see Richard Harring's new show "Happy Now?" last night, and it was very funny. During the first half hour of the show though, Richard did a reprise of some of the highlights of his previous shows, as during August and September he performed them all again over 6 weeks.

This included his rather romantic gesture for the first Valentine's Day he and his now wife shared. She had on her bucket list "Build a pyramid of Ferrero Rocher like that on the Ambassador's Reception advert". So he bought her a single Ferrero Rocher, with a view to getting enough over the years to fulfill her lifetime ambition. The next Valentine's Day he bought her two, and on the third Valentine's Day he failed to realise the power of exponential growth and bought her 4. This year he bought her 128 Ferrero Rocher. He went on to joke about the implications of this, including how it wouldn't be long before there would be enough to build the Great Pyramid at Giza.

Leaving the show, as well as the funny memories and ponderings on the nature of happiness, I wondered just how many Ferrero Rocher would be needed to build the Great Pyramids at Giza. As it's half term, I have found out.

The average size of a Ferrero Rocher (sample size = 16) is 3.2cm x 3.2cm x 3.2cm. They are not a uniform shape, but we'll assume they are for this back of the envelope calculation. We'll also approximate them to perfect cubes*.

Here are the results (click to enlarge):


Fortunately, we have 23 years left before Richard Herring's romantic gesture is about the same as the current annual output of Ferrero Rocher.

However, we can breath a sigh of relief, because the adverts pyramids range in size from 8 to 12 tiers, so fewer than 1,000 Ferrero Rocher chocolates will be needed. Of course it does mean that a new romantic gesture needs to be found in 3 Valentine's Days time...

*If you've read this far and have the wit, by all means take into account that they don't tessellate, and there will be gaps in between,  and that those Ferrero Rocher on the layer above will sit in these gaps. Also, I do not know how much weight a Ferrero Rocher can take, but it isn't more than 73.9 kg (sample size one). So something else that needs considering before filing for planning permission, as the actual number may be higher than those above.

Sample size of one


UPDATE: Well, Richard Herring retweeted me, which was unexpected. Hello Richard Herring fans! You might also like this in relation to the "Give me head till I'm dead" t shirt skit: Traffic light food label for semen.

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