Interesting Snippets

the inventor of the game of chess shows his creation to his country’s ruler. The emperor is so delighted by the game that he allows the inventor to name his own reward. The clever man asks for a quantity of rice… one grain of rice is placed on the first square of the chessboard, two grains on the second… each square receiving twice as many grains as the previous. The emperor agrees… The inventor winds up with 2 to the power of 63 grains of rice, or a pile bigger than Mount Everest. …

Their point is that in an era of exponential increase in the power of technology, things get only get really interesting in the second half of the chessboard.