Can you place 1 million on a number line?

Denise wrote something interesting  relating to very LARGE NUMBERS, sort of a misconception that we all seem to have.

She asked students to mark 1 million on a number line that went from $20 to $1 billion. Here's the number line. Can you do it?



large-numbers-baseline


Give it an honest try!

Then go read how her students fared and see the right answer... you might be surprised!

She said, "Our intuitive number sense seems to work like a semi-logarithmic scale, with the small numbers evenly spaced and the bigger numbers crowded together at the end."

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