Things I Learned While Reading This Summer (1997)
(and will use to develop problems for my class) by Dick Sietz
First published in FACTORIAL, a publication
of the Detroit Area Council of Teachers of
Mathematics, Vol. 29, No. 1.
Reprinted in VIRGINIA MATHEMATICS TEACHER,
Volume 24, No.2, Winter 1998.
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Half of the people in the world have never
placed a phone call.
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Three quarters of the residences in the world
do not have phones.
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The average call to a foreign country cost
eighty-eight cents a minute.
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Americans place five billion dollars worth
of calls to foreign countries.
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Over 29 billion aspirin were taken in the U.S.
last year.
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Each gallon of gas burned by a car produces
20 pounds of carbon dioxide.
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240 million auto tires are thrown away each year.
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The average consumption of ice cream per capita
is 16.1 pounds.
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60% of UPS employees are part-time workers.
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About 5% of our GNP moves by UPS each day.
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A runner's feet will hit the ground 42,000
times during a marathon.
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You could buy a complete Thanksgiving dinner
for 35 cents in 1940.
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Woolworth stores did not sell anything costing
more than 10 cents until 1932.
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Bill Gates is planning to support 288 satellites
in space to improve communications.
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Each day 150,000 pieces of mail have incomplete
addresses that stop delivery.
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There are 75 people responsible for finding
where the incorrectly addressed mail should be
delivered.
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A postal worker has 0.4 seconds to read the
ZIP code and 0.6 seconds to key the number into
a machine that places a mailing code on an
envelope.
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The Javits Center convention center has 900,000
square feet of exhibit space, 16,000 panes of
glass in its roof and employs four window washers.
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The Plymouth-Canton Phase III gym has 16,000
square feet of hardwood floor.
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In 1869 the University of Michigan was the
first American institution of higher learning
to use a millage tax as a source of revenue.
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There are 150 million cars in the United States
and the average car gives off 10,700 pounds of
pollutions each year.
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An 800 square foot apartment in downtown Hong
Kong will cost you $2,000,000.
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$150,000 will buy you a parking space for your
apartment in Hong Kong.
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There is an apartment in Greenwich Village (NYC)
that is three stories high but only nine and a
half feet wide. It rents for $4,000 a month.
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1,000 people move to Las Vegas each week and
each person will use 350 gallons of water each
day.
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The common mole can tunnel under sod at the
rate of seven feet every 12 seconds.
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Workers in Haiti making Disney products for
the Wal-Mart stores earn that country's minimum
wage which is $3.00 a day for an eight hour shift.
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Cleanup crews for the two-mile long Champs
Elysees avenue average eight pieces of gum per
square yard that has to be removed every night.
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The average undergraduate in the state of Michigan
paid $3,816 in tuition cost for the 1996-97 school
year, a 3.6% increase from last year.
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The average monthly cost of day care in the state
of Michigan is $388 per child.
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At Computer Associates, e-mail is banned from
10 a.m. to noon and again from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
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One-third of the earth's land is desert that
receives less than 25 cm of rain during a year.
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Artificial skin is now available for burn
victims and a 4 by 10 inch piece costs $1,000.