Polya Question: ​The illegal chain letter scam works this way: You receive a letter with a list of

(say) 5 names and addresses. You are instructed to send something-say, a dollar to the person at
the top of the list, then remove that name and add your own to the bottom of the list, and send the
letter to 10 people not on the list. Your name will be at the bottom of 10 letters but then rises to
fourth position on 100 letters, and so on. Eventually, your name is at the top of 100,000 letters,
and for a $1 investment plus small postage and copying costs, you receive $100,000.
a) Suppose everyone obeys the instructions, sending their 10 letters within a week. In one
week, 10 people have been sent letters, and in two weeks 10 + 100 people have been sent
letters. How many people have been sent letters in 8 weeks?
b) Assuming that no one gets a second letter, in how many weeks will all 7 billion people on
Earth have a letter?
Understand the problem
The illegal chain letter scam starts with someone who sends letters to 10 different people. You
receive such letter and then are instructed to send a dollar to the person at the top of the list. But
then you remove that name at the top and add your own to the bottom of the list. Finally you
send the letter to 10 other people who are not on the list. Your name will result to be at the
bottom of 10 letters until it rises to the fourth position on 100 letters and so on. Soon, your name
would be at the top of 100,000,000 letters, and for a $1 investment plus small postage and
copying costs, you earn 100,000 dollars.
a) If everyone follows the instructions, and sends their 10 letters each within a week. Then
in one week, 10 people have received the letters and in two weeks 10 +100 people have
been sent letters. How many people have been sent letters in 8 weeks?
b) If no one gets a second letter, about how many weeks will all 7 billion people in the
world have a letter?

Devise a Plan
The first step in problem (a) is to make a chart of people who receive the letters from week 1-8.
In problem (a) we know that in the first week, only 10 people received letters. In the second
week, we are told from week one and two, 110 people have gotten letters. Since week two is
including week one, we can subtract (week two) 110 -10 (from week one), which leaves us with
100. Next, our hint is that the receiver sends 10 letters, and then the next people continue sending
10 letters and so on. So for week 2, it would look like 10 x 10 or 10^2. Make n = the # of weeks,
in the equation 10^n and 10 = the number of letters that are sent that week.

For problem (b), if no one gets a second letter we don't need to worry about it.
To find out how many weeks will 7 billion people in the world have a letter, we can use the data
from problem (a), and continue using the formula until, we get close to the amount.
Carry out the Plan
 a) Step 1: Make a chart / Look for a pattern
Given the information for weeks 1-2 we can see there is a pattern of multiplying by 10 as we
move up the week. You can see that the pattern is squaring each week.
Weeks # of people who received letters total

1st week 10 10

2nd week 10 x 10 100

3rd week 10 x 10 x 10 1,000

4th week 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 10,000

5th week 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 100,000

6th week 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 1,000,000

7th week 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 10,000,000

8th week 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 100,000,000

Step 2: add up the total for weeks 1-8

We know this pattern continues through using the formula 10^n + 10^n-1+... +10^1
Total of 10 + 10^2 + 10^3 + 10^4 + 10^5 + 10^6 + 10^7 + 10^8 = 111,111,110
In the 8th week 111,111,110 people have been sent letters.

b) ​Looking at our data from the 8th week reaching about 111,111,110 people. If we continue
to multiply 10 to the next following weeks, we will get closer to reaching 7 billion people on
earth with a letter.
9th week : 10^9 = 1,000,000,000 people

10th week : 10^10= 10,000,000,000 people

Some time between the 9th week and 10th week, 7 billion people received a letter.

Look Back
The strategies used in step 3, started with making a table and looking for a pattern with the
information given to us. Then using a formula to find the sum for problem (a). In problem (b),
we used the data from problem (a), and continued with the formula. Then we ranged the amount
of people who received a letter between two weeks. Another way to solve these two problems
could be to work backwards by dividing by 10, starting with problem (a)’s info.