Rounded Numbers are Cultural Attractors

Rounded numbers are cultural attractors: They are easier to remember and provide better symbols for magnitudes. So we celebrate twentieth wedding anniversaries, hundredth issues of journals, the millionth copy sold of a record, and so on. This, in turn, creates a special cultural attractor for prices, just below rounded numbers—$9.99 or $9,990 are likely price tags—so as to avoid the evocation of a higher magnitude.

Notes:

Dan Sperber on why we like rounded numbers.

Folksonomies: culture mathematics powers

Taxonomies:
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Keywords:
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Entities:
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Concepts:
Wedding anniversary (0.938843): dbpedia | freebase
Price (0.676152): dbpedia | freebase
2008 albums (0.671783): dbpedia
Dan Sperber (0.658160): website | dbpedia | freebase | yago
Wedding (0.645983): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
1942 births (0.644904): dbpedia
Apparent magnitude (0.639920): dbpedia | freebase
Anniversary (0.627760): dbpedia | freebase

 This Will Make You Smarter
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book:  Brockman , John (2012-02-14), This Will Make You Smarter, HarperCollins, Retrieved on 2013-12-19
  • Source Material [books.google.com]
  • Folksonomies: science