I want to tell you a story. It’s an ancient story and it comes from India. Once upon a time there was a sage who was also a chess player so strong that nobody could ever beat him. The King of the country was very passionate about chess. He also was always winning every match. He was always looking for better and stronger opponents. When he heard that one of his servants of the country was so good at playing chess that nobody could ever beat him, he sent an ambassador to say that the King wanted to play with him. The sage said no. When the ambassador came back to the King carrying this outrageous refusal to play, the King got very angry. Who’d think he was the servant to refuse an order of the King? He sent back the ambassador to tell the servant that he could ask whatever reward he wanted if he won the chess play with the King, or refuse to play and have his head detached from the body. Not unexpectedly, the servant went to the King to play this chess match.
Before starting the match, the servant was asked what he wanted in reward to play. The servant replied he wanted one grain di rice in the first square of the chessboard, the double in the second and so on, till the last square of the chess table. The King was very surprised and accepted such a modest request, thinking he was really a sage man as he was told he was, and they began the match.
The servant eventually won the match. The King was astonished as he thought he was the best chess player in the world, but he recognized his defeat. And said to his accountant to calculate and give the sage the bag of rice.
His accountant went back to his King, saying he could not pay the reward to the sage, with the legs shaking so violently he could barely stand.
“What’s the problem?”, asked the King.
“Due to my calculations, we owe to the servant so much rice that doesn’t exist in all our country”.
In fact, approximately, he would have to give to the servant 210 billion tons of rice.
Long story short, eventually the head of the sage servant fell on ground, cut off from his body, for his outrageous offence to the King.
What’s the meaning of this story?
Math is important. Knowledge is important. No matter who you are. We are living in the era of information. Information is the gold of our age. Think of bitcoin, for example. It is only some numbers magically mixed with cryptography (another branch of math) and other technologies, and you can see how much value it is collecting. And, more important, don’t underestimate the counterintuitive consequences of exponential growth, could this live in math on in real life new organizations and technologies.
@PlutoHash we are proud to deliver the best tools we can for you to create knowledge on what, for us, is one of the most astounding revolutions we are facing in this extraordinary era of information. Wherever this knowledge will be game changing, it’s up to you.
Just keep your head on your neck. 🙂
And don’t forget to smile!