Your son wanted you to give him an allowance of $1.00 a week, but you refused and offer to give him only 50 cents a week. After some debates between you 2, your son (who is pretty smart in math) come up with this proposal:
“Tell you what, Mom (or Dad). Suppose we do it this way. Today is the first of June. You give me a penny today. Tomorrow, give me two pennies. The day after tomorrow, give me four pennies. Each day, give me twice as much pennies as you did the day before.”
“For how long?” asked you, looking a bit wary.
“Just for the month of June,” said your son. “Then I won’t ask you for any more money for the rest of my life.”
“Okay,” You said quickly. “It’s a deal!”
Are you sure this is a good deal? which of the following figures do you think comes the closest to the amount of money that you will have to pay your son during the month of June?
$1, $10, $100, $1,000, $10,000, $100,000, $1,000,000, $10,000,000 ??
Give it some thoughts, it is an interesting problem to work out. Once you are done, you can click here to find the proposed analysis.