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Excel - World's Largest Ball of Paint & Math in Excel - Episode 610

235 views · Published 31 March 2009 · 3:02 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: MrExcel.com · 2009 · Education

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Microsoft Excel Tutorial - World's Largest Ball of Paint & Math in Excel.

Welcome to the MrExcel podcast, where we bring you all things Excel. Today, we're coming to you from Alexandria, Indiana, where we just witnessed the painting of the world's largest ball of paint. That's right, we're at the home of Mike Carmichael, who has been adding layers of paint to a baseball for the past 30 years, resulting in a 2,000 pound, 133 inch ball of paint. And I just had the honor of painting layer number 20405, setting a new Guinness record. But who knows, maybe someone will come along and paint an even bigger ball of paint in the future.
But enough about the ball of paint, let's get to some Excel. Today, we're going to do some basic math in Excel to calculate the diameter of the ball. We start with the circumference of 133 inches and use the formula circumference equals Pi times diameter to find the diameter. So, I simply divide the circumference by the Pi function in Excel and we get a diameter of 42.3 inches. But that's not all, we also have 20405 layers of paint to consider. So, dividing that by 2 gives us a radius of 21.16 inches, and each layer is only 0.001037 inches thick. That's some impressive precision.
Now, I know you're probably wondering why we're at the home of Mike Carmichael painting a giant ball of paint. Well, this video is sponsored by Sherwin-Williams, who provided all the paint for this project. So, if you're ever in the area, be sure to stop by and help set a record by adding a layer to the world's largest ball of paint. Thanks for tuning in to the MrExcel podcast, and we'll see you next time for more Excel tips and tricks."

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We figure out the thickness of a coat of paint, live from the site of the Worlds Largest Ball of Paint.
Episode 610 shows you how.

This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!

Table of Contents:
(00:00) Introduction to MrExcel podcast and location of recording 
(00:19) World's largest ball of paint 
(00:29) History of the ball of paint 
(00:39) Current layer count and potential Guinness record 
(00:51) Measurements of the ball of paint 
(01:01) Basic math in Excel 
(01:31) Sponsorship and location of the ball of paint 
(01:50) Conclusion and invitation to visit the ball of paint 
(02:36) Recap of Excel calculations 
(02:47) Clicking Like really helps the algorithm

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