By Christian Lutkemeyer
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April 25, 2020
Have you ever thought about how the use of the decimal number system diminishes your perception of large numbers? These days we hear about trillions of $US in bail-out money, or tens of thousands of deaths in the Covid-19 crisis. At https://covidtracking.com/data/us-daily you can find data about the death count. As of 4/24/2020 a total of 45786 is shown. What does this mean? How did we get here? In the beginning there were just a few deaths, represented in a single digit (1-9). Then we had to add another digit to count the next 90 fatalities. (10-99) Then we had to add another digit to count the next 900 fatalities. (100-999) Then we had to add another digit to count the next 9000 fatalities. (1000-9999) Then we had to add another digit to count the next 90000 fatalities. (10000-99999) To the eye and our perception, adding another digit becomes less and less significant. At some point it is almost impossible to see a difference. For example, what is the difference between Debt1=$US 100000000000 and Debt2=$US 1000000000000? Looks pretty much the same, doesn't it? To help your eyes, and save you the counting let me write it on two consecutive lines: Debt1=$US 100000000000 Debt2=$US 1000000000000 The difference is zero. One zero added on the right in Debt2, i.e. the second number is ten times larger. Debt2 is 1 Trillion $US. But do you have any idea how much money that is? How does the happiness of 2 Billionaires compare to the happiness of 2000 Millionaires? Both groups have the same money ... To properly appreciate large numbers we must not look at them just as a decimal number! The following text shows you all the 45786 Covid-19 fatalities as of 4/24/2020 as a cross "+" . Each one represents a life that was lost, and family and friends who are mourning. If there is family. Decimal numbers allow to hide a lot of pain and suffering! At some point ten times the pain does not make any difference. Please scroll through the following list and consider each "+" in its significance.