✨Trivia
The Chess Board Rice Grain Problem Shows Exponential Growth
If you put 1 grain of rice on the first square of a chess board, 2 on the second, 4 on the third, and so on, you'd need 18 quintillion grains by the 64th square.
About this fact
This ancient mathematical puzzle demonstrates the power of exponential growth. Starting with one grain and doubling each square, by the 64th square you would need 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains of rice. This would weigh approximately 1,200 billion tons, which is about 1,600 times the global annual rice production. The story is often told as a request made to a king by the inventor of chess, who asked for rice as payment. The king initially thought it was a modest request until his mathematicians calculated the enormous amount required.