The Inventor of Chess and the Emperor of China
 

    "To appreciate the implications of this (or any) geometric trend, it is useful to recall the legend of the inventor of chess and his patron, the emperor of China. The emperor had so fallen in love with his new game that he offered the inventor a reward of anything he wanted in the kingdom.

         'Just one grain of rice on the first square, Your Majesty.'

         'Just one grain of rice?'

         'Yes, Your Majesty, just one grain of rice on the first square, and two grains of rice on the second square.'

         'That's it -- one and two grains of rice?'

         'Well, okay, and four grains on the third square, and so on.'

    The emperor immediately granted the inventor's seemingly humble request. One version of the story has the emperor going bankrupt because the doubling of grains of rice for each square ultimately equaled 18 million trillion grains of rice. At ten grains of rice per square inch, this requires rice fields covering twice the surface area of the Earth, oceans included.

    The other version of the story has the inventor losing his head. It's not yet clear which outcome we're headed for. "
 
 

Fonte:  http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/kurzweil-machines.html