The Story of Cesar Zhang Baotong compiled 2019.5.21

King Hilham of India was very happy to see his prime minister, Sisa, show him the great invention of chess. He was so intrigued by the 64 black and white squares that he decided to reward him, the brilliant and great inventor, Prime Minister Cesa.

So he sent for Cesar and said to him, "My clever and great Prime Minister, I have seen the chess you have discovered, and it is very remarkable, so I will reward you heavily." But I don't know what you need. ”

The wise prime minister immediately knelt before the king, put his hands together and pleaded with the king, "Your Majesty, I beg you to draw in your palace a chessboard with 64 black and white grids, each of which has an area of one square meter. You have to put a grain of wheat on the first square, put its digits on the second square and put it in multiples of two grains in the third square, put it in multiples of four grains in the third square, put six grains in the fourth square, and so on until you have the corresponding number of grains in all 64 squares. I'm very grateful. ”

When King Hillam heard this, he felt that what the clever prime minister was asking for was too simple, even ridiculously simple. So he said to the Prime Minister, "Oh, my faithful servant, you don't ask too much. ”

He admired the inventor's strange idea, and felt that it would not cost him much money, so he said to Cesar, "Your wish will be easily granted." So saying, he sat down the prime minister beside him, and then he had a sack of wheat seeds brought and placed on the throne.

To the king's astonishment, however, the sack of wheat seeds had been counted and placed in less than twenty squares before it was empty. So the king got more people to bring in more wheat seeds. However, after that, each square required so much wheat seed that a bag of wheat seed was not enough for even one square. If a sack of wheat seeds is not enough to fill a square, the next square will be a multiple of that square. How many bags of wheat seeds do you need?

All the wheat seeds in the treasury have been removed, but they are still far from what is needed. The king began to frown, and then realized that his prime minister's request was not simple. So, he asked his butler to calculate how many wheat seeds would be needed to fill all the squares.

His butler calculated for three days and three nights that 18446744073709551615 grains of wheat were needed! If one bushel of wheat contained about 5 million grains, then it would take 4×1012 bushels to meet Prime Minister Siza's needs. A bushel is a dosing container, and one bushel is equivalent to 35.238 liters in the United States.

At that time, the annual wheat production of India was 2×109 bushels, and the amount requested by Prime Minister Cissa was 2,000 times the country's annual production, which means that it would take 2,000 years for the whole country to produce.

Hearing this number, King Hilham was stunned. He knew that even if he was in debt, he would not be able to meet Prime Minister Sisa's demands. So, faced with this problem that cannot be delivered, he must come up with a solution.

One of his ministers gave him the idea, "Either keep paying off Prime Minister Xiza's debts, or simply cut off Prime Minister Xiza's head." When the king heard this, he had no choice but to cut off the head of Prime Minister Cesar.