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     There is a famous story about a king, a chessboard, and a lot of rice that you may have heard about. A king wanted to give a servant a reward for an act of heroism. He asked the servant what he wanted. He probably laughed when the servant gave his request. He wanted the king to put one grain of rice on the first square of a chessboard on the first day, and two on the second square on the second day, four on the third, eight on the fourth, and so on. Each day doubling the number of grains of rice from the day before.

     The king agreed, thinking that this poor servant had wasted his wish. Before the end of the sixty-four days he definitely felt differently. The amount of rice required to pay this debt would have been more than the total rice production of earth.