If you were given a choice...?

doubles**

I would choose the 26 cents today and double it everyday for a year. By the end of the year you will have been given more money than the $500.

definately the latter.

You dont even h ave to calculate it out. Just imagine getting 1 dollar everyday for a year. $365. But every day after the 3rd day you get more than a dollar...it would be logical to see that you would get a lot more than %500

EDIT: Dear god, are people really choosing the $500? Can they really not do math? Im going to do the math...ok well, my calculator couldnt handle it that high but at day 11 you would have recieved over $500 already.

Logically, if you were to get the second choice, you would get the better deal. I went through the calculations as extra credit in math. I calculated by the end of the year you'll get some 10 billion or million (don't remember), but i know it's a huge eminence sum of cash, a lot better than just $500. So, hands down the year deal is better.

You can take a penny and double it every day for a month (30 days) and come out with well over $2,000,000 I believe.

So 25 cents doubled every day for a year must be an astronomical amount of money.

I'd go with option 2. Heck in 12 days you get 512 dollars. Thats not counting what you don't spend in between. Doubles every day? that means the next day its well over a grand.

The second choice. I'm not gonna calculate it now, but the number would be exponentially high. And you would be the richest person on Earth, if that much money actually existed.

By the end of the 1st month you would actually have more than 33 million dollars.

Give me the ladder. A quarter today, fifty cents the next, and by the end of the year I'll be set for a looonnng time.

I think I would choose the $500 > Because "A bird in the Hand is better than two in the Bush" Right? ( I know you have that before.) Corny, But True. (smile)

The second: at 2^365 I would take it even if it started at a penny.

OTOH, If i need $500 by tomorrow to live, I would take the first.

I'll have the $500 today, nobody knows if I'll be breathing tomorrow, or the next day or until the end of the year...lol