An Olympic swimming pool is 50.0 meters long by 25.0 meters wide with a depth of 2.0 meters. It has 10 swimming lanes and is used for many Olympic swimming events including the 200m Backstroke, 400m Freestyle, and 100m team relay events. These swimming pools are also used as a unit of measurement. So for our problem today, lets figure out:
How many 6mm airsoft BBs will fit in an Olympic swimming pool (with the BBs filling the pool and reaching up to the water height level).
What We Know About the Olympic Pool Size
Olympic Pool Dimensions and Volume:
50m x 25m x 2m, 2,500,000 L. (FINA, FR2 Swimming Pools, Federation Internationale De Natation, 2016)
6mm Airsoft BB Dimensions:
5.95mm +/- 0.1 x 5.95mm +/- 0.1
What We Don’t Know
How many BBs will the entire pool hold with the airsoft BBs filling the pool enough to be at the same height as the water level?
To Find The Olympic Pool Volume
We can check the volume of the Olympic pool with this formula:
50m x 25m 2m = 2,500m³
Since 1L is equivalent to 0.001m³
2,500 x 1000 liters finds the volume to be 2,500,000 liters
To Convert The Cubic Meters to Find Our Cubic Millimeters Value
We need to convert liters to cubic millimeters to compare to airsoft BB comparison metrics:
2,500m³ = mm³ / 1000000000
= 2.500000e+12 mm³
2.500000e+12 mm³ = The cubic volume of an Olympic sized swimming pool.
To Find The Cubic Volume of an 6mm Spherical Airsoft BB
If a BB is 5.95mm (spherical dimension) on average for this test, we find:
5.95mm / 2 = 2.975mm for a BB’s radius
The volume of a sphere formula is V = ⁴⁄₃πr³. (Math Open Reference, Volume of a Sphere, 2016)
V = ⁴⁄₃π(2.975)³
V = ⁴⁄₃π(26.330609375)
V = ⁴⁄₃(3.14159)(26.330609375)
V = ⁴⁄₃(3.14159)(26.330609375)
V= 330.879916425625 / 3
V = 110.2933054752083
V = 110.29mm³
110.29mm³ = The cubic volume of a 6mm airsoft BB.
The Answer to How Many Airsoft BBs Would Fit in an Olympic Sized Swimming Pool
Now, we are almost done. We can apply the concepts of sphere packing here. If we use the best sphere packing ratios to fit as many BBs into the pool as possible, we can use a percentage of 0.7405 (aka π/3√2 for the analytical formula). This is because each spherical BB has gaps between it and the next closest BB it is touching on every side. (Wolfram, Sphere Packing, MathWorld, 2016)
So, 2.500000e+12 mm³ x 0.7405 = How much space we can actually physically fill with our BBs
2.500000e+12 mm³ x 0.7405 = 1,851,250,000,000mm³
Then we can combine the two cubic values:
1,851,250,000,000mm³ / 110.29mm³ = 16,785,293,317.617
So, 16,785,293,317 airsoft BBs is the total amount it would take to fill the Olympic swimming pool. What did you guess? Were you close? Now that we got that figured out, how long would it take to shoot that many airsoft BBs?
That would depend on how many airsoft guns you have and how fast they were shooting airsoft BBs continuously! Check out our Best Airsoft Gun Reviews to see the best reviewed airsoft pistols, AEG airsoft guns, and sniper rifles and start shooting airsoft BBs now!
