Marketers vs Mathematicians

After a two-year hiatus while I was reading more books than magazines, I’m subscribing again to New Scientist -- a curious, playful weekly that touches on every flavor of science.

My first issue back was as clever as ever, including this letter to the editor from Tom Heydeman in Reading, Berkshire, UK:

I was impressed to see on the back cover advertisement (28May) that Mercedes-Benz is celebrating “125! years of innovation.” Factorial 125, the number of years claimed, is more than 10²⁰⁰, so the company started to innovate unimaginable aeons before the big bang.

fyi 125! campaign site here