[Maths-Education] (Fwd) (Fwd) Fw: UNCLASSIFIED: Urgent Respond Quickly

[Kenneth Ruthven]

Stuart Rowlands copied:

> For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you
> $245.00, for every person that you sent it to that forwards it on,
> Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every third person that receives
> it, you will be paid $241.00.  Within two weeks, Microsoft will contact
> you for your address and then send you a cheque.

This looks a promising exercise combining arithmetic series, exponential
growth, critical mathematics.... and -in due course- negative numbers.
Indeed, it seems that one further sentence has gone missing from the
message. I imagine it reads something like:

> And every following two weeks, Microsoft will contact you to notify you
> of their address, and the cumulative amount you now owe them.

The upper bound on Internet traffic permitting, of course.

Regards

Kenneth Ruthven
University of Cambridge      tel: (+44) (0) 1223 332888
School of Education          fax: (+44) (0) 1223 332894
17 Trumpington Street        e-mail: kr18@hermes.cam.ac.uk
Cambridge, CB2 1QA, UK       http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk