Numbers in the Real World 
Index of Applications 

Numbers in the Real World applications are exploration exercises that build upon the real-world uses of math discussed in the textbook. Many of these problems require you to visit and collect data from external Web sites. The problems are organized by the section and page in the book where a similar problem is found.

Section 1.7, page 54

College Costs:  Check out the cost breakdown for attending a particular college, and do an Internet search for similar cost breakdowns at other colleges on the web.
Big Money:  Compare your salary to some of your favorite celebrities.
Section 2.2, page 102
Body Mass Index:  Learn how to compute this index to determine whether you are at risk for weight-related illnesses.

Motor Math:  Engine displacement is one way of comparing high-performance cars.  Learn the math on it here.

Section 3.3, page 172
Board Feet:  Learn how to compute the cost of a hardwood board.  Use this to estimate the material cost of a piece of wood furniture.

Packing It In:  How large of a carton can be sent via US mail?  Find out here.

Section 4.1, page 200
Tangrams:  Learn how to make tangrams and explore the area of each of the pieces.

Probable Pizza:  Calculate probabilities using pizza ingredients.

Section 4.4, page 238
Measuring Spoons:  Cook with fractions.

Don't Screw It Up:  Compare metric and SAE wrenches.  A real hands-on activity.

Section 4.5, page 252
Making Dough:  Explore the possibility of owning your own pizza franchise.
 
Lottery Clubs:  Find out why people join lottery clubs to increase their chances of winning it big.
Section 4.6, page 260
Chocolate Cheesecake:  Use fractions to double or half a recipe.  You might want to try the recipe as well.

Cooking With Honey:  Subsitute honey for sugar in recipes for brownies and cocoa applesauce bread.

Section 4.8, page 278
Taking Stock:  Analyze companies and their worth according to the Stock Market.

Oddly Enough:  Understand odds used in gambling games.

Section 5.9, page 366
Slugging It Out:  Learn what a slugging percentage is in baseball.  Compute the slugging percentage for your favorite hitter.

National Debt:  Examine the current numbers for the U.S. national debt.  Find out how much your share of it is.

Section 5.10, page 376
Remedial Courses:  How many students really are taking remedial courses in college?  Find out here.

School Crime:  How safe are you in your school?  Find this out and the reliability of the surveys used.

Section 7.4, page 488
Off The Roof:  Use ratios to determine dimensions of a house.

True To Scale:  Compare dimensions of actual cars to their scaled replicas.

Section 8.1, page 530
Olympic Proportions:  Look up Olympic records and convert their units of measurement.

Tons of Elephant Info:  Study the Asian Elephant, a very interesting animal.

Section 8.2, page 540
In Memory:  Look back at the early computers and their memory capacity.  Compare to modern machines.
 
A Whale Of An Animal:  Killer Whales and Lincoln Continentals.  Look here to make the connection.
Section 9.2, page 590
Stay In School:  See that it really does pay to stay in school.

Stop Crime:  Analyze statistics from CrimeStoppers, Int.

Section 9.3, page 600
Grant You This:  Find what types of arts grants were given, and how much money was awarded to each type?

Household Budget:  Where does all your money really go?  Break it down using pie diagrams.

Appendix B, page A-10
Car Buying Blues:  Find current wholesale and retail prices for your used car online.

Computer Prices:  How much does it cost to build your own computer?