The Maths of Coins and Currencies
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- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- People have used money - and made counterfeits - for thousands of years. Archimedes came up with a clever way of finding out if you’ve been cheated by a goldsmith. Making coins with the right proportions of the right metals presented a huge mathematical challenge for Fibonacci and other mathematicians in the middle ages.
This lecture will discuss mathematical elements of coin design, denominations, and why former Gresham Professor of Astronomy Sir Christopher Wren favoured decimal coinage.
A lecture by Sarah Hart
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
www.gresham.ac...
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Sarah Hart. You're a wonderful presenter to us, the public, and I'm sure a brilliant academic in your field of expertise. Thank you for your Gresham lectures.
She sounds really nervous though.
Thank you so much, I'm really glad you enjoyed it.
@@tuomasronnberg5244 You know what, I do get a bit nervous sometimes. But mostly it's just enthusiasm!
@@sarahhart3241 : And You are right! It’s your creditable and honest mixture of enthusiastic concern for your subject …ie enthusiasm for your subject and honest concern for your delivery, and your equal honest credible concern for your students…All honour to you, Sarah!
Because you love your subject! And if I may say so, my belief is that « success » lies with love and /or enthusiasm for what one does!
Like your job equals success!
Assuming you want to keep physical coins, you can go in for far more radical reforms than switching £1 for 50p in self-checkout machines.
*1. Get rid of fractional currencies.*
Make your base currency the same as the smallest possible transaction amount-that is, 1p. Denominate all larger amounts in multiples of 1p. At first, it may seem weird saying 2,000p instead of £20, or 10,000p instead of £100. But you'll soon get used to it.
Japan is already doing it-it only has Yen; fractional Yens were discontinued in 1953.
And prior to the introduction of the Euro, Italy too did not have fractional Liras. (They had a few extra zeroes at the end due to inflation, but that's a different issue!)
As a tourist to both those countries, I found their currencies far easier to use than the US nickel, dime, and quarter. Those US coins don't have numbers on them telling you how many cents they are worth. And the nickel is larger in size than the dime. Why?!!!
*2. Denominate currency in powers of 3, i.e. 1p, 3p, 9p, 27p, 81p and so on.*
Given the criteria mentioned in the video, this is the most efficient system.
*3. Instead of decimal, use **_base-twelve_** aka **_dozenal_** numbering system*
Self-explanatory, but a hard sell. And goes much beyond currency reform alone.
17:00 A fascinating description of how old-style inflation used to be implemented. Debasing the currency this was happened eventually in most societies no longer functioning. Also, the political comment at around 14:00 made the Crazyman laugh. Thanks.
@Rob Tye I am not smart enough to be able to lose every argument I make about everything, including the arguments I make about what is plain as day and checkable as I stand on a street corner. Usually the same people who fail what I call “the check test” as they deny my obvious parentage. Until 23 years ago, about half of what I thought I knew was shouted down as being wrong. Now, the percentage is 100%. Nice try. But arguing about what debasement begins as (small percentage replacement) and leads (minting less and less over time) to are (groans allowed) the same side of the same coin. I wish you Happy Thanksgiving one month in advance.
Sarah Hart consistently puts out great lectures on this channel. She has a way of animating the seemingly* mundane with immense curiosity by the end of the video. Really liked her previous lectures and this is another very solid instalment!
I first saw a Reuleaux triangle (though I didn't know it was called that at the time) on the Mr. Wizard show (Mr. Wizard == Don Herbert), in the 80's.
It's one of those things that's been at the back of my mind ever since, gently tugging at my imagination... but maybe I'll finally be motivated to dig deeper now that I know it's name.
@11:40 will the reverse happen to a lesser extent if you place the scales in a vacuum?
oooh it's covered! nice
First of all let me tell you that I've never read or watched any Harry Potter book or movie.
that being said it really feels like a deliberate choice to me that JK Rowling chose 17 and 29 (both of them being prime numbers) for denominating the coins so that it makes it impossible to split amounts easily into halves, thirds, fourths and so on.
This part is just pure spectulation or imaginiation on my part, but it might even tell a story in and of itself about what whe thinks about money.
13:36 Все-таки прав был прапорщик из анекдота. "А вот я тебе дам по башке сначала килограммом пуха, а потом килограммом железа: узнаешь, что тяжелее" =)
Best explanation of why blockchain will be the future,..very interesting
Fantastic
Just because somebody has to be "that guy"...
A pound of feathers weighs more than a pound of gold, but an ounce of gold weighs more than an ounce of feathers. It's all about the differences between the troy and avoirdupois scales used to measure gold and feathers, respectively. 🤓
I have an old half penny if anyone has a wonky clock
Money is an illusion.