This week: Odometers Edited by: Robert Waltz  
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I don't agree with mathematics; the sum total of zeros is a frightening figure.
-Stanislaw J. Lec
Sometimes it is useful to know how large your zero is.
-Author Unknown
Round numbers are always false.
-Samuel Johnson |
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My car is about to turn 100,000 miles old.
This is not to be considered surprising; I bought her about 10 years ago, a nice round number, which means I've averaged about 10,000 miles a year, another nice round number, and not unexpected.
The actual numbers are less interesting. Last time I looked, the odometer read 99,689. And I bought the car in August of 2010, and she'll certainly hit six digits before this August. But, as with anyone, the round numbers are easier to remember and do math with. 99689 isn't divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 or 9. I don't know about 7. Figuring out if a number is divisible by 7 is way more work than I'm willing to do for a Comedy editorial. (3 is easy, by the way. Just add up the individual digits; if that sum is divisible by 3, so is the original number. Since every digit in 99689 is divisible by 3 except for the 8, we know 3 isn't a divisor. Since 3 isn't a divisor, neither is 6 or 9. And it's odd, so 2 is right out. This math lesson has been brought to you by The Comedy Newsletter. Bet you weren't expecting that!)
Another way in which the average is misleading is that, over the almost-10 years I've owned the car, I've traveled halfway across the country three times, and all the way across the country four times. Those years saw more than 10K miles, while the other years resulted in significantly less.
Some numbers, such as ones ending in 0, just seem more significant to us. Entering 2020 seems like a milestone; entering 2019, in comparison, was just another turn around the sun. 2000, or Y2K, was a Really Big Deal, and not just because that was the year WDC began. Turning 50 seems more important to us than turning 51, though logically a year is a year. It's also a lot more bragworthy to say that you make $100,000 a year than it is to say you make $99,999, even though the extra dollar is marginally insignificant.
And don't get me started on shop pricing schemes. $4.99 just seems cheaper than a nice, round $5.00. Well, I mean, technically it is, but who among us wouldn't just drop the penny into the give-one-take-one cup?
I suspect that this psychological effect of round numbers would be the case even if we used some counting system other than base-10. If we thought more like computers; that is, in base-2, trailing zeros would appear more often (every other count, in fact), so significance might be limited to powers of 2: 102 (2), 1002 (4), 10002 (8), etc.
To me, 102410 is even more significant than 100010, but then, I'm a nerd.
All of which is to say that I was hoping that this newsletter would end up being ID #10000. I knew one of this week's batch would be, but there was no way I could find to grab it on purpose. No, some other editor will forever be remembered for penning Newsletter #10000; I, however, will languish in obscurity for the far more boring #9998. Couldn't even score the four 9's, could I?
I guess I'll just have to console myself with some 32 year old scotch. That's 100000 in base-2. |
A number of funnies from around the site. 10002 of them, in fact:
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Comedy: February 05, 2020 Issue [#9998]
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