Glossary

Arrangements means the way you put the stacks of dollars together.  Did you make tall towers or short, wide towers?  All the stacks should be touching in your arrangement.

Currency is another name for the coins and paper money.  In the United States, all paper money is the same size.  It is the marking on the paper that tells you its value.

Data is the word we use to describe pieces of information we are going to use to help us work on a problem.  In this problem, the data we are talking about is numbers that describe the size and weight of things.

Denomination means the category of bills.  In this book, all the bills must be the same.  In the U.S., the categories of bills are: one dollar, five dollars, ten dollars, twenty dollars, fifty dollars, one hundred dollars, five hundred dollars, one thousand dollars.

Dimensions are the measurements of the money or suitcases (or anything else) that helps us to find the area or volume.  For a rectangular prism, the dimensions are length, width and depth.

Estimation means to pick a number that is close enough to the exact answer to give us a good idea of the quantity we are dealing with.  Usually, we use estimation when the exact numbers have lots of digits and we want to simplify the math operations we do on them.  Sometimes we need an exact answer, but if we don't, estimation is a very good tool.

An expert is a person who knows a lot about a subject.  A person may be an expert in that one area, but not necessarily in other areas.  Are you an expert at something?

To measure something, like a dollar bill, we use a measuring tool to find out how big it is.  In the case of the dollar bill or the suitcase, we use a ruler or a tape measure to find out how many inches it is tall, wide, and deep.

A millionaire is a person who has at least one million dollars.  Usually, this person is thought to be in good financial shape.

In this book, we use the word "pile" to mean many stacks of bills put together side by side or on top of each other or both.

Piles means more than one pile.  A pile is more than one stack placed side by side or on top of each other.

In this book, we use "record" to mean "write down so you don't need to hold it in you head."  If we try to remember too many things while we work on a problem, we often get confused and make mistakes.

A suitcase is a container with either a handle or wheels or both. We use it to go on trips, but we also use it to carry large quantities of other things.

In this book, tutors are the three characters at the bottoms of the pages who are there to help you with a problem.  You can click on them to hear what they have to say.

Value has lots of meanings, but in this book, it means how many dollars are there in total.