A schoolmistress (so the story goes) in ancient times, gave a chess set to the King of Syria; the king was pleased: “Any gift you wish,” he said to her, “you may have in return.” “I would like,” said the lady, (her name, I believe, was Gloria) “just one grain of rice on the first square of the board, two on the second, and so on, doubling the rice grains for each of the 64 squares.” “Fine,” said the king, “I certainly can do that for you.” From the palm of his hand he placed seven rice grains on the first three squares. By the eighth doubling he easily located 256 grains; the 12th called for 8192 ? manageable, however, continuing his task, the king discovered something unexpected, something utterly awesome: long before he neared the the specified 64 doublings ? not only was all the rice in Syria required for this exponential growth; what he needed, unbelievably ? was vastly more rice than in the entire world!
The king, in a pretty pickle, is useful to us: the world, now racked with food and water shortages, widespread pollution and war, is in the process of doubling from seven to 14 billion in the next few decades. Who would wish, who wants to leave the coming (unstoppable) mob scene ? the donnybrook ? to our kids?
Norman Fleishman
Lakeport
