Does any one know the value of a penny?

This is an old example of the magic of geometric progression. Most math teachers hit this one up with their 5th grade students, suggesting they make a diabolical deal with their parents to do dishes every day for a month. The price? Just 1 penny the first day, 2 pennies the 2nd, and so on. Parents who don't do the math think it's great and agree to the deal.... maybe even in writing. After the first week the parents think their kids are really stupid. The real question is what day the parents figure out they've been taken for a ride. Day 9 is $2.56 and that means day 10 is $5.12. This is when all that hard work starts to pay off for the kids. No parent is willing to let the agreement run for a full 2 weeks at a price tag of $163.83 in total. A complete month would cost the parents a mere $10.7 MILLION dollars. The real benefit here is to understand how important it is to understand what you read BEFORE you sign. How about the same kind of question in reverse? If Bill Gates, the richest man in the US, were to 'invest' his entire fortune in lotto tickets on the first day of the month.... cash in the winnings and invest that in lotto tickets on the 2nd day.... and so on and so on....... how much would he have at the end of the month? It's a sad answer of course. I didn't do the math but someone did and Bill would be down to his last $2. I bought a lotto ticket in 1993. Didn't win... so to hell with that! Maybe I'll buy another one some day. The lesson here is that it pays to be well educated and versatile in math.

Save your pennies they could be great

save your pennies!!!! thats is a great thing to figure out

i've heard of doing that..but you have to have money to save money. it gets up to hundreds of dollars (per day) quick.

woah. i didnt kno that. =] interesting