Tag - Al Lewis

How much gasoline will 9/10 of a cent get you?

Everyone in Denver knows Al Lewis, the smart (and funny) business columnist for the Denver Post. If you’re a regular reader, you know that Al looks at things a little differently than most people do. Okay, he’ very funny. My phone rang yesterday and it was Al Lewis – “Hey Steve… any chance I could get you to isolate 9/10th of a cent of gasoline? Ever wonder why they charge us 9/10th of a cent? What could you do with 9/10 of a cent of gasoline?” Sounds like a math problem to me that could maybe turn into a reason to blow something up. I’m in.

Read Al Lewis’ column about $3.999 gasoline pricing in the Denver Post.

So, how much gasoline does 9/10 of a cent get you? The math is pretty straight forward. Let’s say that the price of gasoline is $3.99 9/10 per gallon. Start by dividing 128 ounces (128 ounces = 1 gallon) by 399.9 cents to get the number of ounces per penny. That’s 0.32 ounces per penny. Multiply this by 0.9 to get the number of ounces 9/10th of a cent buy
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Mentos and Soda Mix – An Erupting Business

In addition to being the Business Columnist for the Denver Post, Al Lewis is now a fan of the Mentos and soda mixture. Al called last week with questions about our recent license agreement with with Italian confectioner Perfetti Van Melle, the maker of Mentos. His column entitled Mentos-Soda Mix a Mint for Scientist looks at the business side of the popular Mentos Geyser. He asked lots of questions about things other than my work on the Mentos experiment. He wanted to know about my background, my teaching and my parents.

“Let me get this straight,” I said to Spangler. “Your father was a scientist and a magician. David Copperfield hung out at your house. You are now 39 years old. And getting a pop bottle to squirt 20 feet in the air is the best trick you know?”

“This isn’t the best trick,” he said. “It’s the trick that got the most notoriety.”

Al also wanted to learn how this science experiment turned into a viral marketing sensation with the Mentos video that aired on 9NEWS in September of 2005.

Al asked me if teachers are really doing this experiment and how they’re turning it into a learning
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