Percent Yield Introduction

Ted Williams (a baseball player for the Boston Red Sox) had a career batting average of 0.344. Your friend's GPA is 3.50. It is rumored that you only use around 10% of your brain power.

What do these things have to do with percent yield??!??

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Batting Average:

Ted Williams's batting average of 0.344 meant that Ted Williams got a hit 344 times out of every 1000 at bats. It also means that Ted Williams got a hit 34.4 times out of every 100 at bats, or 34.4% of the time.

In theory, Ted Williams could have had a batting average of 1.000. That would have meant that he was a god! No person who batted enough times would every come close to having a career batting average of 1.000 (meaning that he got a hit on EVERY AT BAT!!!) BUT IN THEORY, IT IS POSSIBLE FOR SOMEONE TO GET AN AT BAT EVERY TIME! IN OTHER WORDS, "100% of the time."

A batting average of 1.000 would be 100% yield!

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Brain Power:

It is often rumored that you only use about 10% of your brain power. This would correspond to 10% yield. Even though you only use 10% of your brain power, IN THEORY, YOU COULD USE 100% OF YOUR BRAIN POWER. It doesn't matter that no person ever uses 100% of their brain power, it is still possible in theory.