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by Joshua A. Taton, Ph.D. | September 22, 2023 | 1 min read

The documentary Pepsi, Where’s My Jet? is one of the best, most surprising things I’ve seen on television in quite some time.

As a math educator, the most surprising thing? (Spoiler alert!)

It appears, to me, that Pepsi executives thought that Americans would be intimidated by large numbers, such as 700,000,000. So they changed the ad to reflect a more legible (and possibly credibly-attained) value: 7,000,000 Pepsi points.

While partly true—that conceiving of large quantities is difficult for human brains—this anecdote is also yet another stunning indictment of our collective disdain for numerical reasoning.

In this case, a 20 year-old didn’t get a Harrier he felt he was promised. But how many have suffered far, far greater ills from limitations caused by our collective failure to properly prepare students to appreciate and use mathematics?

It’s the Wendy’s quarter-pounder all over again. It’s laughable, if it weren’t so frustrating.

As usual, please write to me, because I welcome your thoughts.

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