11/15/2007

Going negative again ?

I am grateful to my old friend and former Liberal Democrat agent for Norman Lamb in North Norfolk back in 2001, Ed Maxfield, who is number two on the Liberal Democrats East Midlands Euro list (congratulations Ed, you will make a fabulous MEP) for sending me this latest story of negativity.

More dastardly deeds in the Lib Dem Leadership race, surely not. Well actually, and thankfully, the answer is no. In this case the negativity is not from either Chris Huhne or Nick Clegg. Instead it emanates from a National Lottery ticket, and the unbelievable way that some adults fail to understand negative numbers.

The National Lottery have been forced to withdraw a "Instants" Lottery Ticket because it dealt with negative numbers, and members of the public do not understand that -5 is bigger than -6 this mean people were phoning Camelot because they did not know if they had won or not !

Ed Maxfield did send the link to me with the comment "So anyway, about this govt initiative to get rid of useless teachers..."

Yes. Cheers Ed !

1 comment:

Ian Eiloart said...

So, what's the biggest negative integer you can think of? -1? No, large negative numbers are the numbers that you'd use to describe large overdrafts. So, -5 is smaller than -6, though -5 is the higher number.

It's a common mistake, though, to think that large negative numbers are higher than small ones. That's because it's true for the positive numbers that we're all familiar with.

The Manchester Evening News, and Camelot got this right.

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