The Smart (and fun) Way to Understand the Ridiculously Big Numbers in Government

The numbers we hear about in government and politics are often so big that they lose all meaning.  This is a big deal — we are after all in a democracy, and if we can’t understand what we’re even talking about in budgets and programs, it’s hard to make smart decisions. That’s why Cornell University Professor Steven Strogatz and his student Aiyanna Green wrote a New York Times op-ed explaining a smarter way to think about big numbers. Ms. Green is an undergraduate majoring in policy analysis and management in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University, and she joins us to explain.