Proportions v Magnitudes

In the BBC Website Magazine today is an article about proportions and magnitudes. It made me reflect that we often spend time teaching students how to express numbers in different forms, but rarely attempt to give students an understanding of how the numerical forms differ, and what they represent.

This article is a little heavy on the politics for an average maths classroom, but is perhaps useful for A-level students, and is definitely useful for any teachers teaching the IB, as it has excellent cross-over with theory of knowledge. Worth a look