Big Numbers

So this fool of a King says to a chap "Well done for inventing chess boy, you've got some smarts. As I’m such a generous, if rather stupid, monarch, you can have anything in the Kingdom as your reward". The inventor, being a smart arse and not asking for something sensible like a massive house with loads of pet tigers and a harem of buxom virgins bathing daily in lamb’s milk, says to the monarch: “I’ll have some wheat please boss.” The monarch, rightly thinking that the inventor is certifiably insane, says: “Fair enough boy. How much?” So the inventor pulls out his newly minted chess board (Behind the throne, a manservant groans to a butler: “Oh god, not that damn chessboard again. It’s always the same with this guy, chess, chess, chess…). The inventor, being irritatingly smug and risking getting his head cut off for making the king look a fool, says: “Put a grain of wheat on the first square. Then put two grains on the second. Then four on the third, and eight on the fourth. Keep doubling with each square, and when you get to the last square, I’ll have the lot”. Now the king, not being well versed in exponential mathematics, unwisely agrees. “Make it so,” he says, ignoring the protests of his long-suffering scribes.

Being a man with plenty of honour but no perceptible intelligence, the King sticks to his deal over the proceeding months, impatient with the complaints of the bean counters. “Surely, you could just grab a barn full of the stuff from a local farm?” he says, indignant. “Your majesty,” whines a scribe, “to satisfy this demand, there is not enough arable land in the known world”. “Popycock,” says the King, and has the scribe beheaded. In the dead man’s lifeless hand, a bloodied parchment is found:

Ten years later, the formerly rich kingdom was bankrupt and invaded by barbarians. The moral of the story: Never be a smart arse.

Any other interesting chess/number anecdotes?