This is an ancient tale about a King rewarding a Subject for developing the Game of Chess. The Subject said he would be satisfied with starting with a Grain of Wheat on the first square of the Chessboard and doubling it on each succeeding square, until all 64 squares are filled with Grains of Wheat. The King thought this was a trivial request, amounting to only a handful of Wheat, but agreed to fulfill it. By the 10th square, there were 513 Grains of Wheat, including the Grain on the first square. The number of grains required for the 64th square, plus the grains on all the preceding squares, equalled the World's Production of Wheat for the Next 1,645 years! So the King, not being able to fulfill the Subject's request, executed him. Hal
With emphasis on “tale”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chess Not that Wikipedia is the know all and see all of information but the tale is interesting anyway. So far as the math goes, wheat is generally measured by the pound, ton or cubic cm and such so unless one knew how many grains were in any one of those units, the math is hard to proof. Since the recent world harvest is roughly 50 billion tons per year it’s hard to believe that the math is correct. I guess I’ll go and get out my wife’s wheat stash and count how many grains are in a pound and go from there. Note: The first thing to really know is the variety of wheat that is in the tale but I’ll wing it without knowing the full facts.
If you're familiar with exponential numeric advancement, then the units of wheat used are immaterial and beside the point! It's just that the number on the 64th iteration is equal to 1 plus 2 to the 63rd power, which runs into the Quintillions! Hal
Your “tale” insists that it is more GRAINS than etc, etc which Does indeed matter and no, it is NOT beside the point. If the tale had included the number of pounds or tons, then it would be a no brainer. If instead of grains the request started with a simple milligram then the story could be compared to a yearly yield and expanded upon. If your tale said that the man wanted even an OUNCE of grain compounded then that would be enough information to calculate it and proof the findings promoted in the tale. In other words, how much do your quintillion’s of grains weigh so it can be compared to the world’s yearly yield of 50 billion TONS or rather to equal the 1645 years as was promoted those grains would have to have amounted to at least 82,250,000,000,000 tons. That said, it’s your story and your math so stick with it and somebody is going to believe it without proof which is probably the way most people are wired anyway.
Cool story!! Would've been more fun if they were measuring beer. Then, the guy wouldn't have had to die because the king would've been too drunk to care.
Bobby, the story is told using GRAINS of wheat to make it more interesting...why would the King's subject ask for Pounds, Kilograms, Tons, etc? Everyone knows the quantity of a GRAIN of wheat, and that's how this ancient story came down to us! It's not MY story and MY math, Bobby...it's the way the story came down to us through the centuries, so let it be without analyzing it! Hal
Hal, it’s a good story and I’m glad you posted it but I see that you aren’t understanding the problem I’m having. At the end of the story you added that there was so much Grain that it would top the WORLD’s PRODUCTION for 1, 645 years. Now, that’s all good except the World’s Production isn’t measured by the number of grains but by tons of grain or even by the cubic meter. In order for me to see that the number of grains really did exponentially add up to be more than the world’s production for that many years, I need to know how many grains are in a pound in order to proof the aforementioned statement.
Hal, it’s a good story and I’m glad you posted it but I see that you aren’t understanding the problem I’m having. At the end of the story you added that there was so much Grain that it would top the WORLD’s PRODUCTION for 1, 645 years. Now, that’s all good except the World’s Production isn’t measured by the number of grains but by tons of grain or even by the cubic meter. In order for me to see that the number of grains really did exponentially add up to be more than the world’s production for that many years, I need to know how many grains are in a pound in order to proof the aforementioned statement. Let’s just say that 2 grains = 1 milligram. There are 907,184,740 milligrams to a ton. That would mean that there would be 1,814,369,480 grains in one ton. Yearly production is around 50 tons so that would be 90,718,474,000 grains. Now multiply that by 1,645 years and we have a rounded number of 1.5 E14 or rather if we like unrounded numbers it would be 1.4923189 E14 grains. Now, one other factor enters into the whole of the story and that is you wrote that the story came down to us from centuries ago. Alas, I could go further but I’m using today’s production numbers when in fact, the production numbers I should be using should date back to around the 15th century and since I do not have those numbers, I’m stuck in the water. The barge with a single chess board and huge load of grain sank into the sea of no information and there were no survivors.
LOL... Bobby don't forget what topic this post is under... and Hal.... remember this post is under Tall tales and fabrications... so Bobby just might be pulling your chain...
I'll just ask Bobby to let it be as written, as the entire story was based on the escalating number of GRAINS of wheat. Hal