Somebody told me that if i put a penny on the first square of a chess board?

Question

and double the pennies each adjacent square I'd have more money than Oprah Winfrey. I don't believe it! Does anybody else believe that poopyscoop?

Answer 1

You would have much more money than anyone. New money would need to be coined. The answer is two to the 64th power minus one...and that is a BIG number. There's a legend that a king was so pleased with the game of chess that he offered the inventor any reward he wanted. He said he wanted one grain of wheat on the first square of the chessboard, two grains on the 2nd square and continue doubling until the board was filled. The king said the inventor deserved more than a few grains of wheat, but the inventor said that was enough. Eventually, the king learned that there was not enough wheat in his kingdom to give the inventor what he wanted. Indeed it would take years of world wheat production to fill the board. I believe all this, because one can calculate it and see. Pure mathematics deals in certainties. UPDATE----I just calculated the answer. I'm visiting my mother, and I didn't bring my calculators, but I did it the hard way. Someone started the procedure, and I'll finish it for you.On Square #64, you'd have $46,152,932,676,680,967.04! The total is the sum of what is on all of the 64 squares. In high school, I concocted formulas for sums of consecutive series. A teacher punished a class by making us add all of the numbers from 1 to 100. He was angry when I finished in a few seconds. The formula to use here is T=2f-1 when T=total of the series, and f=the final number in it. That gives us what would be on square 65 minus 1=$92,304,865,353,361,934.07. That is much much more than any person or nation has. I'm not sure, but I think it is 30,000 or so times the USA national debt. It would take our nation about that many years to coin that many pennies to put on the colossal chessboard needed to hold them. A few people gave answers that I knew were much too small. It's 92 quadrillion dollars, not a few hundred or a few million. Another time I'll tell how much area so many pennies cover. I don't have a ruler at hand now. I need one for a precise answer.

Answer 2

Forget Oprah Winfrey ..I don't mean just forget her metaphorically ...
I think she is lovely person..anyway getting back to the question
if you double the Penny's you would have more money than every one put to gather on this planet ..in another words you will have more money than is printed on this planet

Answer 3

I can't believe you can't believe it.

Take a calculator. Type 1x2=

At that point type x2=

And carry on as many times as there are squares.

(that'll be 64)

Then see the answer. Divide by one hundred.

That'll be dollars.

Phone Oprah, ask politely how much money she has, then see if that is more or less than the ammount on your calculator.

Answer 4

That's not true, I just tried it in Excel (yes I have way too much time on my hands today) and you would have $650.25. I think Oprah might have a little bit more money in her bank account.

Answer 5

I do know that if you save a penny a day and double that amount from the day before, in 30 days you will have $5,368,709.12

ie....1 ,2,4,8,16,...etc

Answer 6

Dan is an idiot and doesn't know how to do math... everyone else is on the right page with this one... i came to answer your question, but i can see now that you have the answers here that you are looking for.....

Answer 7

I was going to give you a serious and correct answer, but "of the moon" beat me to it.

Answer 8

its true, try it
1+1=2
2+2=4
4+4=8
8+8=16
16+16=32
32+32=64
64+64=128
128+128=256
256+256=512
512+512=1024
1024+1024=2048
2048+2048=4096
4096+4096=8192
8192+8192=16384
16384+16384=32768
32768+32768=65536
65536+65536=131072
131072+131072=262144
262144+262144=524288
524288+524288=1048576
1048576+1048576=2097152
2097152+2097152=4194304
4194304+4194304=8388608
8388608+8388608=16777217
16777216+16777216=33554432
33554432+33554432=67108864
67108864+67108864=134217728
134217728+134217728=26835456
26835456+26835456=536870912
536870912+536870912=and so on