Answered: The Most Michigan "Yooper" Math Problem

According to MLive.com, the Upper Peninsula Supply Company - the same people who thought up 906 Day and Marquette's "Dock-Henge" wondered how long it would take to "Zamboni" Lake Superior. (The lake is approaching 100% frozen - something that's only happened once - on March 8, 1996)

It's a good question. If the U.P. were to have a large skating party some day, this would be a nice touch. Let's get to the math.

According to the company's calculations, a Zamboni machine typically takes 7 minutes to clear the surface of a standard ice rink. The surface area of Lake Superior is equal to 52,020,513 standard ice rinks. Therefore, it would take 364,143,591 minutes to clean the ice of Lake Superior. That's roughly 693 years - not counting downtime for maintenance on a 600 year old Zamboni machine, bathroom breaks, somebody bringing the Zamboni driver a beer - it all adds up. So, I'd say let's give it at LEAST 750 years.

If you want to clear the ice in 20 minutes - just a bit longer than a standard intermission in an NHL hockey game, you'll need 18,207,179 Zamboni machines. Which would make for an awesome photograph.

Nicely done, U.P. Supply Co.

Here's the story.