Where is John Allen Paulos when we need him?
At 12:45 PM -0500 5/4/01, jim clark wrote:
>Hi
>
>Rick cited the Best article, which is good. It had also been
>mentioned recently on the sci.stats.edu newsgroup, in particular
>an allusion to Best's discussion of a statement in a 1995 journal
>article to the effect that since 1950 the number of children
>gunned down in the US had doubled every year. Without some
>appreciation of numbers, people cannot appreciate how completely
>impossible this is. Here are the values that would be involved
>if only 1 child had been gunned down in 1950, culiminating in 13
>trillion being gunned down in 1995. Best notes that this far
>exceeds the total population of the world throughout its entire
>history. He tracked down the apparent source for the figure, and
>it appears to be a statement that the number of child deaths from
>gunshots doubled since 1950.
>
>Year # Children Gunned Down
>1950 1
>1951 2
>1952 4
>1953 8
>1954 16
>1955 32
>1956 64
>1957 128
>1958 256
>1959 512
>1960 1,024
>1961 2,048
>1962 4,096
>1963 8,192
>1964 16,384
>1965 32,768
>1966 65,536
>1967 131,072
>1968 262,144
>1969 524,288
>1970 1,048,576
>1971 2,097,152
>1972 4,194,304
>1973 8,388,608
>1974 16,777,216
>1975 33,554,432
>1976 67,108,864
>1977 134,217,728
>1978 268,435,456
>1979 536,870,912
>1980 1,073,741,824
>1981 2,147,483,648
>1982 4,294,967,296
>1983 8,589,934,592
>1984 17,179,869,184
>1985 34,359,738,368
>1986 68,719,476,736
>1987 137,438,953,472
>1988 274,877,906,944
>1989 549,755,813,888
>1990 1,099,511,627,776
>1991 2,199,023,255,552
>1992 4,398,046,511,104
>1993 8,796,093,022,208
>1994 17,592,186,044,416
>1995 35,184,372,088,832
>
>Best wishes
>Jim
>
>============================================================================
>James M. Clark (204) 786-9757
>Department of Psychology (204) 774-4134 Fax
>University of Winnipeg 4L05D
>Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>CANADA http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~clark
>============================================================================
* PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* Psychology Dept Minnesota State University, Mankato *
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