Numbers Game

How many potholes are there?

Driving to work one wintry day, Richard Gaskill of Glenview, Ill., suddenly felt a sinking sensation. Result: two blown tires, two bent wheel rims, a lost hubcap and a bill for $191.14. In Boston last week, it took 20 men to extricate Patrolman William Mahoney and his 1,000-lb. horse from a 3 ft.-by-3 ft. crevasse on a pathway in the city's Public Garden. In Manhattan, officials are watching claims briskly mount against the city as a result of damaged roadways.

It is pothole time again, and after a frigid season of record snows, the nation's potholes appear to be of record size and quantity. The House has already voted to spend $250 million to fill them, and Joseph Ewing, research director of the Transportation Road Information Program in Washington, estimates the grand total of potholes to be filled at 116.4 million.

Where on earth does Ewing get such a number? Well, he adds up the tons of asphalt mix purchased by public works departments across the country: 6.4 million. Then he divides by the amount of fill required for the average pothole: 110 lbs. The resulting figure, of course, is no more than an elaborate guess. By similar magic, Ewing has figured out the cost of extra gas U.S. drivers will consume in swerving around the potholes: $626 million.

Ewing should meet Jack Tessman, a physics professor at Massachusetts' Tufts University. To win a local television contest, the latter calculated the number of snowflakes that fell on Boston during February's monster storm. He multiplied the average snowfall depth (27 in.) by the area of Boston (43 sq. mi.), then divided the result by the volume of the average snowflake (1/10,000 cu. in.). Answer: 50 quadrillion (5 X 10 16) snowflakes. His prize: a Tessman family portrait--in snow.

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