*** Copyright c 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1995 by Nicholas
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Making Change

     When I was playing high school football, and eating even more than
now, my parents suggested I work (and eat) in a local hospital employees'
cafeteria.
     As cashier, with two lines and no calculator, I was simultaneously
adding and announcing totals two trays ahead, while making change for
those at the register. No one thought anything of it at the time.
     Times have changed.
     My son, Gregory, and I have lunch downtown once a week. The
other day we went in a small college town eatery, offering soup,
sandwiches and salad off a menu neatly written on a chalk board near the
entrance. You'd tell the woman standing there what you wanted, she'd
write it up, add it up and give it back to you. You'd carry the slip to a
polished wood bar, hand it to someone to make up, and pay for it.
     Nothing unusual about that, you say? Maybe not in the 1950s. But
this is 1986. And this woman could actually add up the numbers, and
figure the tax, in her head. That's right. Without a calculator or cash
register.
     Greg works with computers, and was impressed. It prompted him to
muse about the likelihood of such performers someday appearing in circus
sideshow acts.
     After all, Iowa has the "Living History Farms" near Des Moines.
What with the current farm economy, Iowa's school children now need a
museum to learn about the family farm. We may someday have Living
History Steel Mills outside Gary. Why not a small acreage for the few
remaining folks who can still figure without a calculator?
     Many have wondered whether calculators and computers are
keeping kids from learning math "like we did." But Greg was suggesting
the whole society may have forgotten.
     To check Greg's hypothesis we stopped by the bank.
     Now this is a progressive bank. It has to be. Its customers are
eccentric professors and graduate students.
     We asked an officer if he knew the formula for interest
compounded daily. He didn't. He didn't even have a calculator. The
comptroller was rumored to have a Hewlett-Packard financial calculator
and he might also know the formula. But we'd have to speak to him
directly.
     After lunch I called him. No, he didn't know the formula, but he
had it in a book. Since it proved hard for him to understand which
formula went with which problem, he kindly offered to make and mail me
a machine copy of the pages. (I told you it was a friendly bank.)
     How about calculating interest on accounts, I asked. It's
programmed into the mainframe computer, he said. And auditors, do they
check it? Oh, yes, he assured me -- with a different set of computers and
calculators.
     Try it. Ask your banker, or credit card company, for the precise
mathematical formula you can use to come up with the exact amount in
your account.
     After all, this is supposed to be a nation driven by its myopic focus
on "the bottom line." And if that woman at the restaurant ever does join
the circus we're in trouble.
       [February 24, 1986; Cowles March 23, 1986; ICPC March 24, 1986]
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