Where are talking wheat people.............?

Question

a traveling salesman stops at a farm. as he approaches the door, he notices a truck on fire. he pulled a young lady from the truck, the farmer who lived in the farm house comes out to thank the man for saving his daughter. the farmer would like to reward him so the salesman says get your checkerboard and place one grain of wheat on the first square. then place two grain of wheat on the next. then place four grains on the third square. continue his until all 64 squares are covered. 1 how much wheat would the farmer have to put on the 24th square? 2 how much total wheat would the traveling salesman receive if the checkerboard only had 24 squares?

3 calculate the amount of wheat needed to fill the whole 64 square checkerboard. How much of the wheat would the farmer need to give the salesman?

Show me what i'm doing wrong, I need to understand this. please help

Answer 1

I like this problem. In an algebra for dummies book.

1. 4,193,304 grains.

2. 4,193,304 grains.

3. 4,611,686,018,427,387,904 grains!

Answer 2

Get a checkerboard and do it step by step. Use pennies, buttons, etc. to symbolize the wheat. You should be able to solve it.