People are math challenged

Quote: Nareed

The speed of sound _is_ complex.

I thought it was a positive real number. Of course, you could argue that real numbers form a subset of the complex numbers. But in that case, all numbers are complex. At least the ones that are real.

--Dorothy

Quote: Nareed

What does bug me is when people say "X is the highest grossing movie of all time with $Y billions." Or for that matter any kind of monetary record, be it high prices, record sales, record earnings, etc. None os such reports takes inflation into account. A movie grossing $100 million in the 1950s sold more tickets than one grossing $100 million in the 70s (for example). The website Box Office Mojo has a list of movie earnings adjusted for inflation.

This has been a big topic lately with Avatar breaking so many records for gross.

The tricky thing is we don't have details on how many tickets movies sell -- theaters and studios only report the total grosses. So when you see adjusted totals, what happens is people try to use the average ticket price in a given year (which of course is really an estimate of an average), divide it by the amount the movie made in that year, and use that as a baseline of number of tickets sold. That is then multiplied by the average ticket price for the current year to get the adjusted figure.

Given that there is significant variance in ticket prices (true today and always) using the average is a very rough number -- for instance a movie like Snow White has sold a ton of tickets, but a much higher percentage of them were likely discounted children's tickets, so it is probably underrepresented in these adjustments. Big event movies that also represent some kind of spectacle -- be it widescreen in the '50s or color in the '30s or 3D IMAX today -- tend to have more expensive prices, so they tend to get overrepresented.

This is why using total gross in unadjusted dollars is useful. For the most part, it's pretty accurate (though a lot of the numbers are still kind of suspect). Trying to figure out inflation is a nightmare.

It would be nice if the movie studios or theaters would just publish attendance figures, but that's unlikely to happen.

Quote: whoever... duh... you wish... blonde?

The tricky thing is we don't have details on how many tickets movies sell -- theaters and studios only report the total grosses. So when you see adjusted totals, what happens is people try to use the average ticket price in a given year (which of course is really an estimate of an average), divide it by the amount the movie made in that year, and use that as a baseline of number of tickets sold. That is then multiplied by the average ticket price for the current year to get the adjusted figure.

It would be nice if the movie studios or theaters would just publish attendance figures, but that's unlikely to happen.

The real question is not attendance, but what fraction of the population saw the movie. Normalize by population. In that case, I believe years ago I read a study that it was "Gone with the Wind." Some insane number, like 40% of the population saw it.

Quote:

According to this article (Michelle Pautz, The Decline in Average Weekly Cinema Attendance, Issues in Political Economy, 2002, Volume 11; Adobe Acrobat pdf format), "One interesting aspect of cinema attendance is that during the Great Depression, which swept the United States in the 1930's, a higher percentage of the population went to the cinema each week than during the times of economic expansion and great prosperity the U.S. has seen since."

--Dorothy

Quote: DorothyGale

The real question is not attendance, but what fraction of the population saw the movie. Normalize by population. In that case, I believe years ago I read a study that it was "Gone with the Wind." Some insane number, like 40% of the population saw it.

Yeah, of course as you posted people went to the movies a lot more then, too (no competition from TV, Internet, or home video in the '30s). So if you want to fairly measure a movie's success, should we count the home video market and TV viewings, since most people who watch movies today watch them primarily at home?

In measuring per capita attendance across time, "Avatar" literally has to compete with itself, because everyone who debates going to see it in the theater knows they have the option of seeing it at home in a few months. Potential "Gone with the Wind" viewers had to see it then or face the possibility that they wouldn't get to see it -- ever.

Quote: JB

2) When I worked at a convenience store, they had an unusual way of determining their markup. They thought that marking a price up by x% was computed by dividing by (1-x). So for a 15% markup, they would divide their cost by 0.85. This is actually a markup of 17.65%, not 15%. I tried explaining this, but of course it did no good.

That's because you were calculating different things. You were calculating markup, while they were calculating margin.

Dr. Math has a good explanation. Markup and margin are two commonly confused business terms that mean subtlety different things. How much profit you make over what something cost you is your markup. Your margin is the percentage of the sale price that is your profit.

Quote: stephen

This is why using total gross in unadjusted dollars is useful. For the most part, it's pretty accurate (though a lot of the numbers are still kind of suspect). Trying to figure out inflation is a nightmare.

It would be nice if the movie studios or theaters would just publish attendance figures, but that's unlikely to happen.

Living with inflation is a nightmare, too. Try 100% yearly inflation sometime if you don't believe me (and I hope those days are gone). Anyway, it is an important factor, and I'd say a determining factor when comapring movie earnings.

Of course people don't understand inflation, much less the cumulative effcet of inflation over time. They ahrdly understand percentages.

As to attendance, I suppose theaters do keep a count of how many tickets they sell to a given show. I've no idea why such figures aren't reported. Of course, in day to day operations, what matters is how many tickets you sell. Still, for theaters which sell ads that run prior to a movie, attendance figures should be important.

Quote: DorothyGale

Quote: Nareed

The speed of sound _is_ complex.

I thought it was a positive real number. Of course, you could argue that real numbers form a subset of the complex numbers. But in that case, all numbers are complex. At least the ones that are real.

--Dorothy

:)

I didn't say the figure for the speed of sound is complex. I said the speed as such is complex, meaning it's complicated. The figures, of course, is a simple real number.

I wonder what you have to say about sub-prime loans ;)

Quote: Mosca

This reminds me of the time my boss tried to cut my commission rate from 12% to 10%. I freaked. In our meeting, he said, "What's the big deal? It's a 2% cut!" To which I replied, "It's 2% to you, but it's almost 17% to me!" (These were both actually shouted.)

I gave my notice, and before the day was out I'd had 3 calls from people who heard it through the grapevine. I got hired somewhere else at 18%, which I negotiated myself. Less volume, but higher rate, meant same pay for less work, which is always good.

Sounds like you worked at a place I used to when they put in a new pay plan. Before the service people (not me, I was in management) got 20% and that was it. Then they put n an incentive plan that ran from 18-25%. Turnover was mostly unaffected. I didn't notice at first and no one did, but eventually when some of the managers didn't get it I pointed out that you were affecting someones pay by over 25% if they had a bad month, which was often in the fall and winter as we were a seasonal business. It gets worse. At first it was based on what your quality made the previous month, so if a guy was making 25% he would hound you for extra work and if he was at 18% you had to use a pistol to get him to do extra. Then they said, "this isn't working" and made ti the current month's quality, which got worse because they had even less idea what their bonus would be.

One of my bossed would get POed at me when I said the plan is too complicated and too many swings. He said, "It's simple" and I replied that when college educated managers can't explain it to their employees in certain it is too complicated.

I swear I could give a class on "Unintended Consequences of Math 101" with case studies from there alone.

The dumbing down continues with the release of the 75th Anniversary edition of Monopoly, which has eliminated paper currency in favor of an electronic bank that keeps track of everything.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2010/0205/Monopoly-gets-radical-redesign-goodbye-paper-money

I learned how to do basic addition and subtraction by playing Monopoly as a kid and dealing in paper money. When I landed on Pennsylvania Avenue and gave the owner a $50 bill, I knew for certain that he'd better give me $22 in change. I learned a bit of multiplication in computing the rent on Electric Company or Water Works.

And anyway, why take away the glorious pleasure of being able to fondle a stack of beautiful orange $500's?

Quote: gDGBD

The dumbing down continues with the release of the 75th Anniversary edition of Monopoly, which has eliminated paper currency in favor of an electronic bank that keeps track of everything.

I learned how to do basic addition and subtraction by playing Monopoly as a kid and dealing in paper money. When I landed on Pennsylvania Avenue and gave the owner a $50 bill, I knew for certain that he'd better give me $22 in change. I learned a bit of multiplication in computing the rent on Electric Company or Water Works.

Thanks, now you make me feel bad. At my house we have two house rules to speed up the game:

1. No rent on colored properties (does not include railroads or utilities) unless there is at least one house.

2. Pay a flat $200 for income tax.

No wonder my kids could be doing better in math.