Conquered The Kingdom By Rice is a photograph by Hans Zimmer which was uploaded on September 21st, 2018.
Title
Conquered The Kingdom By Rice
Artist
Hans Zimmer
Medium
Photograph
Description
So the legend says:
The king was a big fan of chess and had the habit of challenging wise visitors to a game of chess. One day a travelling sage was challenged by the king. To motivate his opponent the king offered any reward that the sage could name. The sage modestly asked just for a few grains of rice in the following manner: the king was to put a single grain of rice on the first chess square and double it on every consequent one.
Having lost the game and being a man of his word the king ordered a bag of rice to be brought to the chess board. Then he started placing rice grains according to the arrangement: 1 grain on the first square, 2 on the second, 4 on the third, 8 on the fourth and so on:
Following the exponential growth of the rice payment the king quickly realized that he was unable to fulfill his promise because on the twentieth square the king would have had to put 1,000,000 grains of rice. On the fortieth square the king would have had to put 1,000,000,000 grains of rice. And, finally on the sixty fourth square the king would have had to put more than 18,000,000,000,000,000,000 grains of rice which is equal to about 210 billion tons and is allegedly sufficient to cover the whole territory of India with a meter thick layer of rice. At ten grains of rice per square inch, the above amount requires rice fields covering twice the surface area of the Earth, oceans included.
It was at that point that the lord Krishna revealed his true identity to the king and told him that he doesn't have to pay the debt immediately but can do so over time. That is why to this day visiting pilgrims are still feasting on Paal Paysam and the king's debt to lord Krishna is still being repaid.
Source: http://www.singularitysymposium.com/exponential-growth.html
Uploaded
September 21st, 2018
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Comments (2)
Uther Pendraggin
The second I saw the rice,I knew that was where you were going. Brilliant! India produces 104,000,000 metric tons of rice per year. At that rate it would take 2,020 years to pay off the debt. PLAU UPD
Hans Zimmer replied:
The very second i saw that my friend commented i knew there is -at least- one fellow artist i can rely on :o) Thank you so much my dear friend! Very (!) much appreciated! Have a great day and best regards -H.D.Z.(Hans) :o)
VIVA Anderson
Kudos, Hans. A gorgeous image, inspiring and inspired by the back-story....how sage the sage, how wonderful the outcome for humanity,how noble the king's promise kept.......This is so thoughtfully presented...compliments, f.v.........VIVA
Hans Zimmer replied:
Hello Viva, my dear friend :o) So happy you like my work here. Thank you so much for your wonderful and praising comment, your precious time and your support of course. Very(!) much appreciated indeed! Have a great day and best regards -H.D.Z.(Hans) :o)