Freakonomics has a neat story about a kid who convinced his parents to make exponentially increasing Tooth Fairy payments: 1 cent for the first tooth, 2 cents for the next, doubling every time. His folks agreed, with the stipulation that every payment after $10.24 goes into his college savings account. So here’s the question: how much money will his parents deposit to his account? (You can do it in your head, once you know that kids have 20 baby teeth). The harder follow-up question is this: assuming the first tooth comes out when the boy turns 7, and he loses them uniformly until he’s age 12, and his savings account pays 5%, compounded monthly, how much money will he have when he turns 18?
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