Word: understandably
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Seriously, what is it? To the average person, a number that big probably doesn't mean much. At some point long before the hundred-billion-dollar mark, large numbers simply become figures on the page, well beyond human scale and intuitive understanding. And yet as discussion about the economy and the impressive numbers that come along with it continue to dominate the news, it may be more important than ever to try to understand. Is a $700 billion financial-industry bailout a lot? Is a $775 billion economic-stimulus package enough? (See the worst business deals...
...common strategy for beginning to understand big numbers is to devise visual representations. One time, sitting at a baseball game in Philadelphia, Paulos started counting seats along the first-base line. Multiplying the number of seats in a row by the number of rows, Paulos came up with a section of the stadium that he figured contained about 10,000 seats - an image he can now think back to whenever a person starts talking about tens of thousands of a particular thing. When numbers get too large, though, that method breaks down. A stack of one trillion $1 bills would...
Lindsey, meanwhile, argues that property taxes are a "backdoor tax." "I believe local officials should go to your front door to tell you they need to raise taxes," he says. "There are times when constituents will understand that they need [higher taxes] for better services, and they will adjust...
...away. "It used to be artist sketches, then photos, then video," she says, "and this may just be the next step to facilitate our memories." While she applauds the research that will be required to develop the application, she's unsure about kids' reactions. "How would a young child understand an artificial-intelligence program that is a simulacrum of their parent?" she asks...
Fitzgerald will undoubtedly argue that the talk itself was a crime. Says Lyon: "The prosecution's position, as I understand it, is the offer to take a bribe or something of value is the completed crime because it's depriving the people of the state of the right to honest service." Such statutes have become broader, allowing lawyers greater reach in how to interpret such talk. "It used to be quid pro quo. That's what people were looking for. Not so anymore." Smith, a former prosecutor who has taught federal criminal law for 15 years, explains: "The question...