SAMPLE WRITING ASSIGNMENT


Type: Research paper on large numbers.
Length: 2 pages minimum, 4 maximum, plus works cited page.
Required references: 2 minimum (Crandall's Challenge of Large Numbers, and one other – see below).
Due Date: Friday 14 November

This assignment will require you to do two things:
  1. Do three order of magnitude calculations:
    • In the literature section of the library pick an average-sized book and estimate the number of words contained in it, and then estimate the total number of words contained in all the books in the literature section.
    • Calculate the number of hairs on your head.
    • Calculate the amount of money students on this college campus spend for books in one semester.

  2. Find an article which contains one or more examples of a large number, 109 or larger, and then:

    • Present an outline of the article, explaining in particular how the article itself represents the magnitude of the number(s).
    • Describe the large number(s) in the article in concrete terms using at least two of the order of magnitude calculations from part 1.
    • Explain how this activity makes the numbers involved easier to understand. Can you think of any other ways you might make the number(s) from your article more accessible?
For example, suppose I found an article on the national debt, which stated that it was about $5 trillion, i.e., 5 × 1012 dollars. Suppose further that I had decided that I have about 5,000 hairs on my head, or about 5 × 103. I could then make the national debt concrete by calculating that it would take about 1 billion heads of hair to represent the national debt. I would then go further and calculate the national debt in terms of books on a shelf (or perhaps, in this case, in terms of whole sections of the library!), and so on.

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