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So you can count to nine, right?

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Y'know, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. [Girl counting]

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…Why no nine?

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Because seven…eight…nine….heh.

00:21

Okay, we're just joking, 9 is alive and well. [The number 7 sat at a table in a diner]

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And with just those ten digits, we're able to represent numbers way bigger than just

00:30

ten.

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Which is definitely a good thing…you wouldn't want your paycheck to say "$9…plus some [Picture of a pay check]

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more, we guess."

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And it's all thanks to the magic of place values.

00:39

The idea of place values is pretty simple.

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We count up from zero using our regular digits, but once we run out, aka once we get to 9, [Scoreboard counting up]

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we tack on a new place value.

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So if we have 9, and we want to go up by one, we replace the 9 with a 0, and put a 1 to

00:53

the left.

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The 0 is holding the ones place value…

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…while the 1 is holding the tens place value. [Arrows pointing to the place values]

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And since saying, "8, 9, 1 in the tens place value and zero in the ones place value," gets

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kinda clunky, we just call it "ten." [Long description gets crossed out]

01:06

Without place values, we'd need new symbols for each new number, and if you think math

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is hard now, try doing it when you need to remember millions of different, tiny symbols. [Random symbols appear and girl runs away]

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Calculators would need to be the size of huge playgrounds. [Girl jumping on a big calculator]

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Boring, mathy playgrounds.

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The place values are all organized around powers of ten. [Coop pointing to a blackboard]

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Each time we add a new place value to the left, we're multiplying the last one by ten.

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We start with ones…

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…then multiply that by ten to get tens…

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…then multiply that by ten to get to the hundreds…

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…then multiply that by ten to get to the thousands…

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…then, well, we think you get the idea.

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We could keep doing this for a really, really long time.

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However, let's not…we don't want this video to never end, we have lunch plans. [Guy apologies for being late to lunch]

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These place values give us a very simple way to understand what's going into our numbers.

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Take 2,074, for example.

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In the ones place, we see a 4.

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So 2,074 definitely contains 4.

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When we move over to the tens, we see a 7, so 2,074 also contains 7 times 10, aka 70. [Each component of the number is highlighted]

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Next, when we look at the hundreds we see a 0.

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Sorry, 2,074, but that means you contain 0 times 100, or a big, fat 0.

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But no need to despair.

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In the thousands we see a two, so 2,074 also contains 2 times 1,000 which is 2,000.

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And, surprise surprise, if we add up those four numbers, we get—drumroll—2,074.

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Which is a much nicer number to see on a pay check. [Paycheck with $2,074 on it]

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And if you're ever confused about what a certain place value represents, just look for the [Boy holding a teddybear looks confused]

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decimal point. [Arrow pointing to the decimal point on a price tag]

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It always sits just to the right of the ones, which is a pretty cozy spot if you ask us.

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So if you have $26,000, that's enough money to buy a pretty good speedboat… [ATM showing $26,000]

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…but if that decimal point hops four places to the left, you're down to $2.60…

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…which is only enough to buy a pretty blah sandwich. [ATM showing $2.60]

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And we definitely wouldn't recommend taking it out on the lake for a spin. [Woman stood on a sandwich in the lake sinks]

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