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Comment by AnotherGoodName | Hacker News Reader

Blame the % symbol that hides the '/100' fraction. If anyone was asked the inverse of 78/100 they'd correctly say 100/78 everytime.

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Given the huge number of life changing decisions that involve the '%' symbol, this is great advice.

100/78 still doesn't give me an intuitive feeling that it'll be much different from 22%. I know it is, but I still can't easily say it's 28% based on intuition.

I think a more important thing to do is to use the same baseline to compare to: "Linux vs Windows and Linux vs Windows" not "Linux vs Windows and Windows vs Linux".

We can tell that 100/78 is somewhere between 100/75 and 100/80, which we can do in our heads as somewhere between 1.33 and 1.25.

https://xkcd.com/2501/

Fractions are badly understood by quite a lot of people [1], even for an operation as simple as "inverse", and especially if they had to learn one time that x^-1 = 1/x to pass a quiz.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28935891

We are talking about fractions, not crystaline structures. The problem is that people forget their high school math very quickly when they stop using it. Many of us keep using it everyday.

The recent story about consumers perceiving a 1/3 lb burger to be smaller than a 1/4 lb burger suggests it's a lower level problem than remembering high school math :)

Had to check the calendar for the year because that story is from the 80's and the articles that circulated and were popular were mostly written in 2014-2016 and cycle back around every few years because factoids that let people laugh at how dumb Americans are seem to be popular clickbait. Seems to be making the rounds again because A&W is taking the piss by rebranding their "1/3 burger" to a "3/9 Burger". I also had to double-check that I wasn't reading an article from The Onion.

I think it would be funny in a sad way if people are actually good at reducing fractions but still get confused by 1/3 > 1/4 after they've simplified 3/9. Least it'll make good clickbait in the 2050's.

People aren’t necessarily good at reducing fractions, either, in case that’s of any comfort.

>a 1/4 lb burger

What is a "lb burger"?

lb is a common abbreviation for "pound" (the weight measure, 16 ounces).

Damn, the US measurement system is complicated. In the metric system it's called a Royall :) Ok, I'll see myself out.

The mouseover/title text on that XKCD:

How could anyone consider themselves a well-rounded adult without a basic understanding of silicate geochemistry? Silicates are everywhere! It's hard to throw a rock without throwing one!

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