[Tutor] Order Of Operations Question

[Evert Rol]

Sorry, forgot to reply-to-all:


I don't know the book nor the exercise, but see my comments interspersed in the code, and a few general remarks at the bottom

> From a practice exercise in Building Skills In Python page 64 I'm
> working on How Much Does The Atmosphere Weigh? Part 1:
> To check it states that the answer should be app. 10**18kg However,
> and I've checked to make sure that the math I've layed out matches up
> with the texts, I get 5.07360705863e+20
> 
> In the code I have broken the order of operations down to more
> parenthetical, and tried outright, but see nothing obvious about how
> it's strung together. If anyone has had a similar experience with the
> problem given, or see anything blatantly obvious I've done wrong with
> the ordering of operations. I tried to include as much of the
> problem(formulas are just above variables they're used in) as comments
> as possible.
> 
> import math
> def atmosphereWeight():
>   pi = math.pi
>   """Air Pressure (at sea level) P0. This is the long-term average.
>   P0 = 1.01325 × 10**5"""
>   airPressCLevl = 1.01325*(10**5)
>   gravity = 9.82
>   """We can use g to get the kg of mass from the force of air
> pressure P0. Apply the acceleration of gravity
>   (in m/sec2) to the air pressure (in kg · m/sec2). This result is
> mass of the atmosphere in kilograms per
>   square meter (kg/m2).
>   Mm2 = P0 × g"""
>   masAtmoInKgPerSqM = airPressCLevl * gravity

Simply from looking at the units left and right of the equality sign, you'll need to *divide* by g, not multiply: [kg] = [kg m / s^2] / [m / s^2]


>   """Given the mass of air per square meter, we need to know how
> many square meters of surface to apply
>   this mass to. Radius of Earth R in meters, m. This is an average
> radius; our planet isn’t a perfect sphere.
>   R = 6.37 × 10"""
>   avgRadiusEarth = 6.37 * (10**6)
>   """The area of a Sphere.
>   A = 4πr2"""
>   areaSphere = 4 * pi * (avgRadiusEarth**2)
>   """Mass of atmosphere (in Kg) is the weight per square meter,
> times the number of square meters
>   Ma = P0 × g × A"""
>   masEarthAtmoInKgPerSqM = airPressCLevl * gravity * areaSphere

ditto here: divide by gravity, not multiply by it.


>   print(masEarthAtmoInKgPerSqM)
> 
> atmosphereWeight()


Few general remarks:
- the standard way of writing numbers with a power of ten in code is something like 1.01325e5. I guess this is also easier/quicker to execute (not that this code is time-critical, but in general)
- why do you assign masTmoInKgPerSqM, then later not use it when calculating masEarthAtmoInKgPerSqM?
- just use math.pi when calculating areaSphere, instead of "pi = math.pi" and then later using pi. For me, that's just as clear.
- no need to put parentheses around powers; they are evaluated before the multiplication (unless this is what you meant by "to more parenthetical"
- try indenting the comments as well; more readable

Probably not all of the above are necessary, if you wrote this for debugging your problem, but they're just some thoughts that occurred to me.

Enjoy your calculations.