Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 August 1901 — Mathematics for the Barber. [ARTICLE]

Mathematics for the Barber.

Few people have an adequate conception of what a million means, although we are getting to be quite familiar with the term Itself. The other day I found myself under the razor of a barber, who was a stranger to me. He began conversation by remarking that I had a stiff beard. Taking this as an apologetic hint that I was to be badly scraped I replied that some barbers did not think so, as they generally shaved me without much trouble. "WeU,” said the barber, "I ought to know, for 1 have shaved millions of men.” "Thousands, you mean,” said I. "No, millions,” said he;“I am sure I have shaved more than a million." I Inquired his age, which was 31 year; learned that he could shave four persons in a hour, and then took home to my children a little sum in arithmetic, which they worked out in this way: If a barber should shave four men per hour, ten hours a day, for 365 days a year during sixteen years, the number shaved would be 233,600. It would take him nearly Seventy years to shave 1,000,000 persons. If he should shave continuously night and day fpr sixteen years he would get over less than half a million faces. It is not at all likely that our 31-year-old barber had shaved altogether more than 100,000, and unless he moved around a great deal these probably did not include more than 5,000 individuals.—Philadelphia Ledger.