RE: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] beginner slide rule wanted

[Jonathan King <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Wed, 2 Jul 2003, Mike Miller wrote:

> So, this problem really involves two numerical tricks:  knowing that
> 2^10 is about 10^3, which everyone should know! (but they don't) and
> knowing that there are about 3.15 x 10^7 seconds in a year, which is a
> good thing to know, but also not known to many.  So I can see why your
> students don't get it.

Oh, I wasn't really expecting anything like order of magnitude accuracy.  
What disturbs me is that there are people whose answer to this are (and 
I'm not kidding) a day or a week or (bravely!) a year.  Or even worse, 
there are people who are afraid to guess at all.  One piece of info that I 
didn't give to you is that I do tell them that 2^10 is about 1000.  In any 
case, anybody who has used Mr. Slide Rule knows that log10 2 = .3, so 2^64 
is over 10^19, and if that's seconds, it's going to be a looong time.

jking

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