>> 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.

Indeed.

>   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.

Actually, I saw Brainiac investigate exactly how many times you can fold 
a piece of paper before it becomes so thick that you can't fold it.

They "cheated" by using a reel of industrial tissue paper, which is 
much, much thinner than normal paper. The first few folds presented 
little difficulty. By the time they got to (IIRC) the 12th fold, they 
drove a minivan over it to hold it, and it still wouldn't stay bent...

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