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/ 

New Math and Clueless Clerks

Sue went to the grocery store at lunch today. It was a simple transaction, less than $20. The total was actually $17.07 Using her ATM card, Sue asked for $2.93 change in order to round the bill up to a neat $20. Easy to remember if you lose the receipt. The girl at the register handed her $20. Sue gave it back and tried to explain that she had been given too much change. The clerk was clueless, she had no idea what Sue was talking about. "The receipt says Debit $20.00, so I gave you $20.00.", was about the only response she was able to offer. Sue tried to reason with her, to no avail.

The Assistant Manager was called over, surely he could straighten this out. Nope. Totally beyond his power of reasoning. Time to call in the big guns. The Manager! It took him a minute or two, collecting information on all sides to the dispute, before carefully adding and subtracting the applicable numbers, which proved Sue to be correct. She had been given $20 too much.

It's frightening to think of all the time and effort that was brought to bear in correcting a problem as simple as addition and subtraction. But it's one of the many things I love about Sue. Me, I would have given up after the Assistant Manager and just tossed the $20 in the Salvation Army kettle outside.