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Showing posts with the label fantasy solution

Fantasy Problems and Flying Carpet Solutions

One issue in teaching about big numbers is for students to understand just how big numbers can get.  But here we include not just students, but us all.  With modern computers and storage devices, we have become accustomed to some big numbers, notably megabytes, gigabytes, and even terabytes. In this brief article, we examine just how big numbers can get from innocent sounding problems.  This is combined with new ideas about fantasy problems and flying carpet solutions .   Fantasy problems are those arising in our minds from an array of possible disconnects with reality, and flying carpet solutions are those offered with disregard of possibility.  Some sound good; but fantasy may be the best descriptor. One particular example is given about tracking of all people, not dissimilar from information you may have about how your various devices can currently track you.  It is a good teaching exercise of how numbers can get huge, and completely unmanageable.  The tools are only simple fac