The Rules...

I'm not just waiting to November 1st to start my experiment because I'll have a clean new calendar page. It's not just having an actual whole month.

It's that every experiment needs rules. Parameters. Things that keep you honest.

We know the hypothesis. One penny, in a geometrically increasing number, over a month, becomes not one one-hundredth of a dollar, but over ten million of them. Pretty cool theory.

The prediction? Well, if I told you I thought I'd be shopping for sports cars in December, I'd be a liar. (Plus, I live in the mountains in Pennsylvania. Buying a sports car in December in PA is a suicidal gesture.) My prediction is that after a couple weeks, finding the requisite number of pennies per day is going to get...challenging.

And so...we have to establish the rules for our experiment and its observation.

Rule 1: Only pennies found on the day in question are to be counted. I can't hedge my bets by hoarding the pennies found on Day 3 in anticipation of Day 18.

Rule 2: Only truly newly found pennies are to be counted. I can't pick pennies out of my purse or the coin cup in my car. Those are to be considered previously found, and as such, would violate Rule 1.

Rule 3: Pennies that I have but don't know about CAN be considered newly found. I mean, yes, I own the penny I might find under my son's car seat, but unlike the pennies in the coin cup, I don't know about this one, and therefore, have not previously found it. So, couch cushions, the lint filter in the dryer, etc., are all legal tender and up for grabs.

Rule 4: Falling short on one day does not change the prescribed number needed for the next day. For instance, if on Day 17, I can only find 65,000 pennies, the fact that I have fallen 536 pennies short doesn't change the goal for Day 18. That would change the final goal, and the final total is what we are experimenting to find. Subsequent tests of the hypothesis could change, and a real-number doubling may occur in another month.

Rule 5: Does a penny have to be a penny? Could a penny be loose change? Or a dollar bill? I'm going back and forth on this one at this point. Should the penny be a unit of measurement for the final product, or a tangible element? Is a found quarter any less a part of the total millions? Hmmm. Right now, I'm leaning toward allowing any found money, or at least, any found change. In part, this is because I am looking at how many pennies I'm going to have to find during the last few days of November, and I'm realizing I'm going to have to be baking pies and stuffing turkey during this period, which could slow me down a little. I may get strict with myself before November 1st, however, and demand a pennies-only policy.

Any holes in my logic? Are their points I'm missing? Let me know. I only have 20 days to work out the bugs.