Podcast
Monday Morning Podcast
Bill Burr shared a story from a Carl Sagan book about the origin of chess, where a vizier asks for a single grain of wheat for the first square, and then doubles it for each subsequent square. The story highlights the power of exponential growth, as the amount of wheat on the 64th square was 18 quintillion grains.
I recently read something kind of insane in a Carl Sagan book and thought I'd share
— Episode: Monday Morning Podcast 1-15-24
Episode: Monday Morning Podcast 1-15-24
Bill Burr shared a story from a Carl Sagan book about the origin of chess, where a vizier asks for a single grain of wheat for the first square, and then doubles it for each subsequent square. The story highlights the power of exponential growth, as the amount of wheat on the 64th square was 18 quintillion grains.
I recently read something kind of insane in a Carl Sagan book and thought I'd share
a vizier for an ancient I don't even know what that is for an ancient Persian king invented chess.
The king was so blown away by the game that he says to the vizier you can have anything you want as a reward. A palace or two treasures, dancing girls, you name it. You name it.
The vizier comes back to the king and says all I want is one single grain of wheat for the first square then two grains for the second square then double it for each square after.
The king laughs at the request and tells the head of his granary to grant the vizier's request and when he started everybody did it. So the vizier gets one grain in the first square then two in the second four in the third eight and the fourth and so on. Here's the thing though by the time he gets to the 64th square the vizier had his own 18 quintillion 446 quadrillion 744 trillion 73 billion 709 million 551 thousand 615 bits of grain.
