Puzzles
The lake and the lily pads
A patch of lily pads doubles in size every day. It takes 48 days to cover the entire lake. How long does it take to cover half the lake?
Reveal the answer
47 days. The intuitive answer — 24 — treats exponential growth as linear. If it doubles daily, the lake goes from half-covered to fully covered in a single day. The same blind spot makes pandemics and compound interest feel slow right up until they aren't.
— Shane Frederick, Cognitive Reflection and Decision Making — Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2005