This is a linkpost for Parker Dimensional Analysis. Probably a little elementary for LessWrong, but I think it may still contain a few novel insights, particularly in the last section about Verison's error.

A couple years ago, there was an interesting clip on MSNBC.

A few weeks later, Matt Parker came out with a video analyzing why people tend to make mistakes like this. Now I'm normally a huge fan of Matt Parker. But in this case, I think he kinda dropped the ball.

He does have a very good insight. He realizes that people are treating the "million" as a unit, removing it from the numbers before performing the calculation, then putting it back on. This is indeed the proximate cause of the error. But Matt goes on to claim that the mistake is the treating of "million" as a unit; the implication being that, as a number [...]

The original text contained 5 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
June 25th, 2024

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5vfSNLb92eyXKkQax/mistakes-people-make-when-thinking-about-units

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Mistakes people make when thinking about units” by Isaac King

LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“Mistakes people make when thinking about units” by Isaac King