| Discussion: | All Topics |
| Topic: | The L curve |
| Related Item: | http://mathforum.org/mathtools/tool/18781/ |
| Post a new topic to the tool: Graph of the US Income Distribution: Visualizing Large Numbers discussion |
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| Subject: | RE: The L curve |
| Author: | Mathman |
| Date: | May 14 2005 |
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>Comprehension of big numbers is
> difficult for non-mathematicians, for an interesting reason,
> actually. Consider the numbers:
1,000
1,000,000
> 1,000,000,000
I agree, and am well aware of it as a former math teacher. I used the tale of
the man who wanted rid of his wife for a while so he gave her a million dollars
with instructions to spend a thousand dollars a day. She came back after about
three years. However, he still wanted rid of her, so he gave her a billion
dollars with the same insructions. ...He didn't see her for the next three
thousand years.
>By the way, I did not submit this site to
> start a political argument. I was invited to submit the site. I
> recognize its political content, but the relevance is that
> mathematical understanding is important to informed participation in
> the political process.
You may be misinterpreting my intent. There was nothing political of any sort
intended in my comments. I was indicating that the differences being so large,
are in fact easier to see than small differences. It is in fact differences
that we perceive more readily, rather than actual values. I am not indicating
that the graph or project is useless in any way, and simply mentioned something
about how it actually worked. Best wishes.
David.
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