What is a percentage?

Have you ever noticed that weird little symbol on your phone's battery or your weather app? The percent sign (%) is everywhere, but what does it actually mean? Join Mira and Finn as they uncover the invisible mathematical superpower hiding in plain sight! You'll travel back over two thousand years to Ancient Rome, where Emperor Augustus created a special rule called the "centesima" to collect exactly one out of every hundred items sold at massive, chaotic auctions. Discover how thinking "out of a hundred" is an amazing trick that lets you compare absolutely anything in the entire universe on the exact same scale—whether it's half of a tiny peppermint sweet or half of a gigantic football stadium! Plus, find out the hilarious true story of how hurrying Italian merchants scribbling down the words "per cento" squashed their messy handwriting into the famous percent symbol we use today. Is it really mathematically impossible to give 110 percent effort on the sports field? Tune in to find out!