Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> If one grain of rise weights 2 mg, then 2^64 - 1 grains of rice weigh 
> about 36,000,000,000 metric tonnes (i.e., thirty six thousand million).

  A reference to that classical (although most probably apocryphal)
chess story.

  It demonstrates, however, how little the human mind comprehends
exponential growth (even though it's something that can sometimes
be observed in everyday life, eg. in the spread of bacteria or mold).

  There's a funny experiment you can do to a friend related to that.
You tell him: "Suppose you have a really large piece of cardboard
which is 1 mm thick. Now you fold it once, and the result is 2 mm
thick. Fold it again, and the result is 4 mm thick, and so on. How
many times would you have to fold it so that it would be so thick
as to reach the Moon?"

  Of course the answer is surprisingly small.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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