January 12, 2007

A Math Geek's revenge

Have you ever gotten a bill where the postage to send it cost the company more than just writing it off?  Yeah, me too.

But I suppose it happened one too many times to this guy.....



Click the check to see the whole thing if your screen is small.

Answer to the total and an explanation for the non math geeks below the fold.
Hint: the equation is "0.002 + e^i∏ + (the sum from n=1 to ∞of 1/2^n)"

I doubt this was credited to his account, sadly enough.

h/t Lisa W

Here's the math:

By definition, e^i∏ is -1. That comes from Euler's identity. Also, the sum from n=1 to ∞of 1/2^n, is one of the simplest geometric series, and is equal to 1.

So 0.002 + (-1) + 1 = 0.002, or 1/5 of a cent.

However, I suspect he meant 2 cents, in which case he should have written 0.02...

Posted by caltechgirl at January 12, 2007 12:43 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Well, I sure as hell wouldn't have known the answer, but I suspected it was something miniscule. I love it!

(I'll grant him the misplaced decimal, but no self-respecting mathematician--which I am not--would have cut him slack!)

More comprehensible to me:
WHAT NOW, BITCHES?
HA!

Posted by: Beth at January 12, 2007 01:55 PM

I have intentionally overpaid a bill by $0.01, just so the company that hacked me off needs to pay for sending me a statement.

I also do this with parking tickets, to drive the bean counters crazy. On second thought, maybe I should short them the cost of postage.

Posted by: Aaron at January 12, 2007 02:29 PM

The $0.002 is intentional. Thanks to Adam Lawson for the explanation. The linkage is here.
Basically, it's their billing rate per kilobyte in Canada for cell phone data usage. The trouble is that they tell folks it's .002 cents and then bill people .002 dollars, which jacks up their bill by a factor of 100.

Posted by: G at January 12, 2007 03:46 PM

Funny, but only because you explained it. Other ways it just looked like jibberish to me.

Posted by: Contagion at January 12, 2007 03:54 PM

THAT is too f'in funny. Seriously.

Posted by: Mia at January 12, 2007 06:56 PM

Gotta love creativity. LOL.

Posted by: Teresa at January 12, 2007 09:33 PM

That is seriously priceless!

Posted by: beth at January 13, 2007 07:51 AM

Love it!

Posted by: Marie at January 13, 2007 12:39 PM