Expert: Sherman D. - 5/22/2004

Question
I need a little help with a math problem. Here it is: There are 70 items and within a 400 year span it grew to 2,000,000 items. The question is what is the percent increase?

I tried to work out the problem but ended up with 2857142% being the increase--is this right?

Answer
Here is how you do it.

((2000000 - 70)/2000000) * 100 = V

(1999930/2000000) * 100 = V

0.999965 * 100 = V

V = 99.9965%

However if you were to switch the denominator with 70, you get 2857043% which sounds reasonable. I am not totally certain if you can have a percent that is higher than 100%, but i could be wrong. If i were you, i would case a few other people and see which one they came up with.