[fptex] Advertisement: $5 bills in the mail!

[Jan Pluntke]

> Dear Future Millionaire:

No way!

I don't assume anyone on this list will be stupid enough to follow up 
on that dubious offer, but nevertheless, I can't refrain from doing 
some additional mathematics.

> METHOD # 1: BY SENDING BULK E-MAIL LEGALLY
> ==================================================
>
> Let's say that you decide to start small, just to see how it goes,
> and we will assume You and those involved send out only 5,000
> e-mails each. Let's also assume that the mailing receive only a
> 0.2% (2/10 of 1%) response (the
> response could be much better but lets just say it is only 0.2%). [snip]
> With a 0.2% response, that is only 10 orders for report # 1. Those
> 10 people responded by sending out 5,000 e-mail each for a total of
> 50,000. Out of
> those 50,000 e-mails only 0.2% responded with orders. That's=100
> people responded and ordered Report # 2.
>
> Those 100 people mail out 5,000 e-mails each for a total of 500,000
> e-mails. The 0.2% response to that is 1000 orders for Report # 3.
>
> Those 1000 people send 5,000 e-mail each for a total of 5 million
> e-mail sent out. The 0.2% response is 10,000 orders for Report # 4.
>
> Those 10,000 people send out 5,000 e-mails each for a total of
> 50,000,000 (50 million) e-mails. The 0.2% response to that is
> 100,000 orders for Report
> # 5.

Now, the important fact is *all this has alread happened!* There have 
been at least(!) five levels of this cascading "moneymaking" scheme 
already. A total number of 55,555,000 emails has already been sent! In 
order to get all that money, you have to continue this calculation for 
five further levels. It's easy to see that this will lead to a grand 
total of 5,555,555,555,000 emails sent (for each additional level, put 
another 5 in front of the number). Considering that current world 
population is at approximately 6,000,000,000 (never mind the exact 
figures - the number of zeroes is important here), the number of emails 
sent is roughly 900-1000 times(!) as large as the number of people on 
the whole world (and how many of those will have an email account at 
all?).

Best regards,
Jan
-- 
All science is either physics or stamp collecting. - E. Rutherford