TE
TechEcho
Home24h TopNewestBestAskShowJobs
GitHubTwitter
Home

TechEcho

A tech news platform built with Next.js, providing global tech news and discussions.

GitHubTwitter

Home

HomeNewestBestAskShowJobs

Resources

HackerNews APIOriginal HackerNewsNext.js

© 2025 TechEcho. All rights reserved.

What This Country Needs Is an 18¢ Piece [pdf]

39 pointsby jdleesmilleralmost 8 years ago

10 comments

s0rcealmost 8 years ago
Interesting idea, however, it seems like it would be slower for people to calculate what change to give, also Americans won't even use the $1 coin, I can't see the 18c coin gaining wide acceptance.
评论 #14582707 未加载
评论 #14582988 未加载
评论 #14583417 未加载
评论 #14582681 未加载
Humphreyalmost 8 years ago
Australia solved this problem back in 1990 by removing 1c and 2c coins. When paying in cash, transactions are rounded to the nearest 5c. No rounding occurs for digital transactions.<p>Have just spent a month in the USA for the first time, I found that the only reason coins &lt; 25c were used were when change was given. And this was only the case because adding tax to the price made most prices having unrounded final amounts. In Australia, all prices are quoted including tax, which means that prices can be rounded, and so the need for coins in minimised.<p>I love the mathematical slant of this paper, but it&#x27;d make much more sense to try and get rid of the need for coins.<p>Perhaps, the USA could remove all coins except for quarters?
评论 #14583808 未加载
forintialmost 8 years ago
In 2010, after reading an article similar to this one (but lighter on the maths), I wrote a Perl script to calculate what would be the best combination of 4, 5, or 6 coins.<p>I did not look into the actual distribution of prices and just supposed that every value was equally probable.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;alquerubim.blogspot.com.br&#x2F;2010&#x2F;09&#x2F;otimizando-niqueleira.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;alquerubim.blogspot.com.br&#x2F;2010&#x2F;09&#x2F;otimizando-niquele...</a><p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;alquerubim.blogspot.com.br&#x2F;2010&#x2F;09&#x2F;otimizando-niqueleira-ii.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;alquerubim.blogspot.com.br&#x2F;2010&#x2F;09&#x2F;otimizando-niquele...</a>
dizzystaralmost 8 years ago
It&#x27;s interesting from a purely computational perspective, but I&#x27;m pretty sure most people would have some difficulty counting out in denominations that aren&#x27;t mod 5.<p>Noting that this is from 2003, before many stores introduced the automatic changer, I&#x27;m not sure if the 17% increase in efficiency would make a huge difference.<p>Humans themselves aren&#x27;t efficient, and many registers across America aren&#x27;t designed to be an assembly line with no niceties.<p>One would think the 50c coin would be in wider circulation than it is, so I&#x27;m assuming the authors are correct that the odd denomination wouldn&#x27;t see large acceptance.
评论 #14583025 未加载
评论 #14583497 未加载
nayukialmost 8 years ago
Currency denominations (coins and bills) are usually based on numbers like 1, 2, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 200, etc.<p>An extreme example is that Japanese yen are denominated as 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000, 2000(uncommon), 5000, 10000. But I noticed that it takes a lot of 1&#x27;s to pay or make change, whereas the 5&#x27;s are less used.<p>What if we use denominations like 1 and 3 instead? The benefit is that the ratio 1:3 is similar to the ratio 3:10, so they are more evenly spaced on a logarithmic scale. Specifically, I&#x27;d like to explore what happens if the denominations are 1, 3, 10, 30, 100, 300, 1000, 3000, etc...
grenoirealmost 8 years ago
Reminds me of McNugget numbers (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mathworld.wolfram.com&#x2F;McNuggetNumber.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mathworld.wolfram.com&#x2F;McNuggetNumber.html</a>).
protomythalmost 8 years ago
I would rather we scrap this whole base 10 and have the Dollar divided into 12 pence (like the old pence to shilling). That given a nice 2, 3, 4, and 6 for divisibles instead of 2 &amp; 5.<p>I would bet that 18c would get labeled a devil&#x27;s coin by some.<p>Of course, I&#x27;m one of those folks who would like to to see the $1, $5, and $10 bills replaced with coins. Might be nice to follow the example of some of the Chinese coins and have a hole in the middle for convenience.
paulcolealmost 8 years ago
&gt; For people who make change on a dailg basis, it is desirable to make change in as efficient a manner as possible<p>Is it though? You&#x27;re going to save a few random seconds here and there, not big chunks of time. Plus it&#x27;s not like the change making process is hugely slowing down checkout lines.
andrewstuartalmost 8 years ago
Transactions are rounded by default in Australia.
jstanleyalmost 8 years ago
&quot;This country&quot;? The author is at the University of Waterloo, but the Abstract talks about the USA.<p>It should be called &quot;What THAT country needs is an 18c piece&quot;!
评论 #14582660 未加载
评论 #14583186 未加载