Game of Chess

Math comes up over and over again in many of the oldest chess legends. One tale, known as The Doubling of the Squares, tells of a king, presented with an intriguing new sixty-four-square board game by his court philosopher. The king is so delighted by chess that he invites the inventor to name his own reward.

The philosopher, pointing to the chessboard said - Just give me one grain of wheat for the first square of the board, two grains for the second square, four grains for the third square, and so on, doubling the number of grains for each successive square, up to the sixty-fourth square.

The King agrees to his modest request. He did not realize that through the hidden power of geometric progression, his court philosopher had just requested 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 (eighteen quintillion) grains of wheat--more than existed on the entire planet. The King was given a fascinating new game and a powerful numbers lesson.

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