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| Douglas Hofstadter |
Douglas Hofstadter, the author of the book Gödel, Escher, Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid, coined the word innumeracy, by analogy to the word illiteracy, to mean the lack of mathematical knowledge affecting a large part of the population.
Let's look at an example of innumeracy proposed
by A.K. Dewdney in his book 200% of Nothing:
A man finds a $5 bill, puts it in his pocket and thinks: "As I have a $10 bill in my other pocket, I just won 50%." When he arrives at home, he discovers that he has lost the $5 note he had found. He then thinks: “As I had $15 and have lost $5, I have suffered a 33% loss. As previously I had won 50%, overall I have won 17%.”
