Surely water wouldn't be able to evaporate through the skin of the melon for a start, thus the melons would maintain the same weight and he would finish with 200 pounds (lbs) of melons. Secondly, if it could, and these melons lost 1% of their water content, then i would imagine that 1% needs to be replaced by air since there isn't going to be any more pulp there now. This would make them lighter by 1% (assuming air weighs nothing which isn't strictly true but a reasonable relative estimate). Thus, i conclude they must lose 1% of their mass and now the watermelon seller only has 198 pounds(lbs) of melons.
#5 by vanessa Aug 14, 2008
a watermelon can\'t evaporates, if all watermelons evaporate all water melons where consists 98% of water or totally evaporate...so the 99%is not right....:)
#6 by sydney! Sep 3, 2008
i dont get it. a watermelon cant evaporate because of the peel. i just dont get it okay!
#7 by Jenn Sep 9, 2008
It seems to be that he ONLY took home the melons that were 98% water. Given that the water can't actually evaporate through the rind, NONE of the watermelons were 98% water, all of them were 99% water. Therefore, he didn't take any watermelons home with him, because he was only taking the 98% melons. So he took 0 lbs of melons home. I could be way off, but that's what it sounds like to me! :)
#8 by Haidee Oct 29, 2008
100 pounds because the 1% pulp weighs 2 pounds. After some water evaporates, its only 98%. Now 2% represents the the weight of the pulp. SO 2% of the watermelon's weight is 2 pounds, so that means that the total wight which is 100%, is 100 pounds.
