Warp wrote:
>   I find it curious how those people at Verizon don't seem to have a
> problem in understanding the concept of (and difference between), for
> example, 0.1 dollars and 0.1 cents, but when they see "amount of money
> per unit equals 0.001" they immediately lose all grasp of the concept
> of *units*, and only seem to see that *number* alone, without the context
> of the unit. "There's no difference between 0.001 dollars and 0.001 cents.
> They are the same number." Like the unit stopped mattering when we go out
> of the safe boundaries.

I heard of some study once which looked at what the poorest and best 
students had learned in a math class.  It turned out that the worst 
students had actually learned *more* concepts.  For instance, they 
learned the equation for the area of a square, the area of a rectangle, 
the area of a right triangle, etc.  The best students, however, only 
learned a few concepts, like "area" which they could than apply to solve 
many different problems.

I wonder if what's going on here is something like that where people 
have learned the concept of "multiply small numbers" without ever really 
grasping the meaning of "multiply" in general (or many even "number" in 
general).

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