(Might as well put the hat-tip in the subject line.)

First of all, this explains a lot:

• Poll: How many millions are in a trillion? (econ4u.org)

(TJIC source)

I don’t have to explain why this is relevant, right?

In one chapter of his book Metamagical Themas, Douglas Hofstadter bemoans the fact that people tend to have abysmally poor intuitions for large numbers.  We didn’t evolve in situations where we had to deal with quantities greater than, say, a few dozen, and when numbers like “one-point-four trillion” are thrust upon us we tend to treat them all as simply “big”.

Tyler Cowen provides an intuitive model for numbers in the trillion-dollar range:

• How much is a trillion? (Marginal Revolution)

Next, TJIC reports on an outbreak of dumbworms at Fox News*:

• units (Dispatches from TJICistan)

Given the results of the first poll, however, I can’t be sure that the reporters cited above aren’t just well aware of their audience.

——

* Another cheap joke: how can they tell?  In all fairness, the story might’ve been sourced from Reuters