The word trillionaire has been in the news since SpaceX’s IPO a few weeks ago. I have no idea what it feels like being a trillionaire (and I bet neither do you.) A net worth of a trillion dollars is several orders of magnitude above mine and yours.
Besides, I have a hard time dealing with large numbers.
Large numbers are unnatural. Understanding them is not part of our cognitive endowment. We don’t have an instinctive feel for them. We have to develop the skill needed to do arithmetic using them. The legendary Stanford computer and cognitive scientist John McCarthy (1927 -2011), the man who coined the term artificial intelligence, had in his email signature the line, “He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.”
Economists, my tribe, have to do arithmetic and algebra if we are committed to not talking nonsense. Arithmetic and algebra are unnatural. Without instructions, we are totally incapable of learning them.
Speaking and comprehending language comes naturally to us. As does bipedal locomotion. Nor do we need to learn the physics of ballistics to be able to throw and catch a ball. But we have to be taught to learn reading and writing because those two are as unnatural as arithmetic and algebra. Continue reading “Large Numbers”
Atanu Dey : Life is a Random Draw 