[2016 12-21] Why didn't the king...?

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StCredZero
Posts: 77
Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2013 10:07 pm

[2016 12-21] Why didn't the king...?

Post by StCredZero »

Just stop after the 4th square? "And so on" is sufficiently ambiguous as to allow this.

Revan

Re: [2016 12-21] Why didn't the king...?

Post by Revan »

so 2^19 is a about a half million, and since were doubling on each square from 1 I can assume that the last square is 2^19, since 2^0 is one on the first square. Additionally since i add the previous i can just assume we are basically at 2^20, so a million right? Theres 64 grains of rice to a gram. The whole thing weighs about 17300g, or 17kg or in otherterms, roughly 36-7 lbs. Thats nothing. The wise man's an idiot.

Zero Kelvin

Re: [2016 12-21] Why didn't the king...?

Post by Zero Kelvin »

Revan wrote:so 2^19 is a about a half million, and since were doubling on each square from 1 I can assume that the last square is 2^19, since 2^0 is one on the first square. Additionally since i add the previous i can just assume we are basically at 2^20, so a million right? Theres 64 grains of rice to a gram. The whole thing weighs about 17300g, or 17kg or in otherterms, roughly 36-7 lbs. Thats nothing. The wise man's an idiot.
I typically try to avoid posting on the internet, but I also can't sit idly by while people have apparent misconceptions. A chessboard has more than 20 spaces. In fact, it's got 64. The king just realized he had gotten conned at the 20th space. The total amount of grains of rice is much higher.

heyitscory

Re: [2016 12-21] Why didn't the king...?

Post by heyitscory »

18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains in total, once the 64th square is filled. Assuming your number of 64 grains to a gram, that's 288,230,376,151,711 kg of rice or roughly 500 times the amount of rice that is consumed globally in a year. The wise man was foolish to think the king would go for the idea or even be able to hold up his end of the bargain, but asking for enough rice to feed all of China for all of China's history, and then some... that's a pretty good prize.

alsimoneau

Re: [2016 12-21] Why didn't the king...?

Post by alsimoneau »

He could have stopped after the first row and be technically correct, the best kind of correct.

catfarts

Re: [2016 12-21] Why didn't the king...?

Post by catfarts »

1,2,4,7,11,16...

Seems pretty manageable to me, there was no mention of doubling.

JOG

Re: [2016 12-21] Why didn't the king...?

Post by JOG »

Everyone seems to be saying the Wise Man's an idiot for expecting that amount of rice, but I thought the point of the original story was that he never expected that much, he was trying to trick the king in to making a promise that he couldn't possibly keep.

Capable Runt

Re: [2016 12-21] Why didn't the king...?

Post by Capable Runt »

I don't recall the wise man ever saying (in this comic, at least) that the sum of rice had to be given to him all at once. "Congratulations wise man, here's your complementary bowl of rice for the day, smart ass."

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