There is a legend that once an ancient king, who liked chess a lot, summoned the mastermind who supposedly created the game and wanted to award him for his creation of the beautiful game. He offered him gold, equivalent to his weight, but the poor man rejected. Instead, he drew a chessboard and a handful of wheat. He put a grain of wheat on a1 square, 2 grains on a2, 4 grains on a3 and 8 grains on a4. He then told the king:

-Go on and continue this sequence up to h8. I will then collect all the grains as my award, your highness...

 The king laughed at the modesty of the man and immediately ordered to reward the man as he wished. Soon he realized he is in big trouble...

Do you know how much grain is needed to fill up a chessboard...?

 

2^64 - 1

2^64 - 1.... this number was known in the ancient world as an "uncle-ben-plex".

S=(1-2^64)/(1-2)

or

18,446,744,073,709,551,616

I think. :=)

Ray_Brooks wrote: 2^64 - 1.... this number was known in the ancient world as an "uncle-ben-plex".

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Well done guys. But you are all missing the point. The truth is you need a hell of a lot of grains. Anybody can estimate it in kilos...? :)

Ray_Brooks wrote: 2^64 - 1.... this number was known in the ancient world as an "uncle-ben-plex".

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I have the grain amounts, but "uncle-ben-plex" wins hands down for wittiest comment of the day!!!

No wonder there is a world rice crisis going on right now.  Let's get this mastermind and award him a ton of feathers (in lieu of  a ton of bricks) after the tarring.

i have heard this story before. it is a very interesting one and proves one thing... never trust a chess player. ; )

Can I have a ton of cash, preferably in $50 bills, instead please.:-)

Just to get an idea of the number, the only thing that you need to know is that in order to collect that amount of grains of wheat it would be necessary to cultivate the planet Earth 76 times, including the immense deserts.

How many grains of wheat could his weight in gold buy?

Do you know how much grain is needed to fill up a chessboard...?

 

Not much!  I have tried it and you can't imagine how much gets spilled on the floor!

Well, I had tried to find this number a long time ago (when calculators weren't that advanced) and it is really big. If you assume one grain is about 0.2g, the total number of grains outweighs our planet...!

shaxmat64 wrote: Well, I had tried to find this number a long time ago (when calculators weren't that advanced) and it is really big. If you assume one grain is about 0.2g, the total number of grains outweighs our planet...!

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 You were born in 1985.  There has not been a point in your life 'when calculators weren't that advanced.'  Even had you seen that day, wouldn't you be capable of multiplying by '2' sixty-four times, noting the amount at each step, then adding those amounts together?

silentfilmstar13 wrote: shaxmat64 wrote: Well, I had tried to find this number a long time ago (when calculators weren't that advanced) and it is really big. If you assume one grain is about 0.2g, the total number of grains outweighs our planet...!

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 You were born in 1985.  There has not been a point in your life 'when calculators weren't that advanced.'  Even had you seen that day, wouldn't you be capable of multiplying by '2' sixty-four times, noting the amount at each step, then adding those amounts together?

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Well noted, pothead. The resulting number is in the order of 18 (quintillion or something) and there was no calculator at my disposal with that big a display. So, you are right, I had to do it manually! (and with errors, I guess). Nowadays you can do it on any Miscrosoft Windows calculator in no time.

The actual amount would be 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 which would weigh roughly 896,505,880,904 metric tons.  For some idea of how much this really is: at the current normal rate of consumption, it would take the world about 2,517 years to use that much wheat.

 

EDIT:  I don't smoke pot, shaxmat64. 

silentfilmstar13 wrote:

The actual amount would be 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 which would weigh roughly 896,505,880,904 metric tons.  For some idea of how much this really is: at the current normal rate of consumption, it would take the world about 2,517 years to use that much wheat.

 

EDIT:  I don't smoke pot, shaxmat64. 

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How come you have one less grain than me?

Evil_Homer wrote: silentfilmstar13 wrote:

The actual amount would be 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 which would weigh roughly 896,505,880,904 metric tons.  For some idea of how much this really is: at the current normal rate of consumption, it would take the world about 2,517 years to use that much wheat.

 

EDIT:  I don't smoke pot, shaxmat64. 

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How come you have one less grain than me?

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 because the first square has one grain, not two.  There must be an odd number of grains, logically.

Fair point. :-)

silentfilmstar13 wrote:

The actual amount would be 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 which would weigh roughly 896,505,880,904 metric tons.  For some idea of how much this really is: at the current normal rate of consumption, it would take the world about 2,517 years to use that much wheat.

 

EDIT:  I don't smoke pot, shaxmat64. 

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So the ultimate question is how to store that much wheat... :)

I was joking about the pot thing. Good you don't smoke. Me neither.