August 19, 2005

One Two Three ... infinity

123Infinity One Two Three ... Infinity: Facts and Speculations of Science is another book I first read when I was in junior high school. Written in a humorous, easy-to-digest style by the celebrated scientist George Gamow, One Two Three nearly blew my mind when I read his descriptions of exceedingly large numbers.

For example he wrote a no-doubt apocryphal story about King Shiram of India, who was so pleased with his grand vizier, Sissa Ben Dahir, for inventing the game of chess, that the king asked the vizier what he'd like for a reward.

The vizier told the king he'd like one grain of wheat for the first square on the board, two grains for the second square, four grains for the third square, eight grains for the forth square, and so on, doubling the number of grains on each square for all 64 squares on the board. The king thought about it for a second and said, "You got a deal."

Gamow describes how the king order his servants to bring in a bag of wheat, thinking that there would be more than enough to fulfill his vizier's request. But the entire bag was emptied on the 20th square. He soon realized that he'd empty the palace's entire supply of wheat before coming even close to the end.

As it turned out, Gamow writes, "the amount requested by the grand vizier was that of the world's wheat production for the period of some two thousand years!"

The entire book is filled with awe-inspiring anecdotes like this, which had the result of stretching my mind more than anything I'd learned in school up to that point.
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