Power of 2

There is a famous fable from India about the man who invented the game of chess. He presented it as a gift to the king. The king was so pleased he asked what he might want as a reward. The man requested that 1 kernel of wheat be placed on the first square, and a double amount on each successive square.  64 squares - seemed reasonable to the king but ...

Here is the arithmetic progression




For math geeks: 

Roughly 18 quintillion. To be precise, the total number of grains on the 64 squares equals 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 which represents about 6000 years of production by the world's current leading wheat producer, China.

Do you remember the 1980's Faberge commercial that started with a person on the screen and a voice over saying "she told 2 friends and they told 2 friends and so on and so on ..." and pretty soon the TV screen was filled with thumbnail sized images?  Same principal.

This is how social media works and how it can be used to propagate false and malicious information. I recently saw a post which made an outrageous claim regarding a politician's purported statements. (They are depressingly numerous). I would have thought that anyone would simply dismiss it out of hand - and yet, it had over 1000 reposts. People who believe everything they see on the internet  (or choose to believe) are the backbone of the Russian efforts to disrupt our democracy. I do not know if the post I saw originated in Russia, but the point is - they want to polarize and divide us. They post these things to "rile folks up", and it is working to divide us all too well. 

Before you repeat something you read on the internet, either to the internet or in polite conversation, VERIFY.  There are numerous fact checking facilities and when in doubt, stifle your urges. It is like the old adage, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Likewise if it seems outrageously false, it probably is.

We need to restore civility to our conversations and it starts with you and me.  And if we tell 2 friends and they tell 2 friends, and so on ... we might just change the world.


Copyright © 2018 Dave Hoplin