The Power of Doubles

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

A man; or woman; comes up to you and asks if you would be interested in working for 30 days at 1 cent for the first day, with the daily rate to double for the 30 days. There is only one catch; at the end of the month long assignment you can no longer work again; anywhere, at anything.

Do you take the job? Hopefully your answer is yes; because the last 3 days alone with net you a whopping $11 million or so. Do the math, it’s kind of fun and it gives you a whole new perspective on numbers.

Related to this would be artists royalties on records; either as performers or writers; the pennies they receive each time their records are played amount to millions over the period of just 1 year alone. And those pennies; unlike the 30 day $11 million dollar deal above; go on forever.

The same process applies to pandemics. The first person gives it to another person who gives it to 2 more who pass it on to 4 more, etc., etc. The Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1919 is a great case in point. The same is also true of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980’s.

Numbers have always fascinated me; even when I was failing math in grammar school. I knew that there was a magic there which I couldn’t decipher yet. Later; when I learned to navigate by the stars; I found the numbers to be every bit as fascinating as I knew they would be. And still are.

If you want to see the math  behind this 30 day plan, visit the following site. Great minds think alike, and as I was looking around on the net to see if anyone had posted on this before, I came up with the following site. Totally different articles about the same thing. That's what I love about the internet. Perspectives.

http://www.1500days.com/the-magical-doubling-penny/