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Estel Counts  by Larner 6 Review(s)
GamgeeFestReviewed Chapter: 16 on 12/25/2010
A very big cart, if you count high enough. What a fun way to teach a child to multiply.

Author Reply: I can't remember the name for this conundrum, but remember being told about it in a class on logic and rhetoric. The sum for all the powers of two up to the sixty-third power plus one more for that first square....

AndreaReviewed Chapter: 16 on 12/18/2010
Estel is quite good at mathematics!

I admit I used my fingers, too. Later I found a formula: 2 to the power of (n-1), where n is the number of squares.

If you ADD all the grains on a chessboard, however, you get a VERY LARGE number: 18,446,744,073,709,551,615! The formula for that one I looked up at Wikipedia :-)


Author Reply: I had to do so, too, just to make certain I had the successive numbers correct. And when one does add the grains, it certainly adds up fast, doesn't it? Estel's cart will be far too small, I fear, before they're done. We tried to calculate it in our logic class and were rather boggled before we got halfway done!

Kitt OtterReviewed Chapter: 16 on 12/16/2010
I admit with a little shame that it took me three tries on my fingers to come up 16. Smart kid, Estel! :)
(To add to the shame, I've been studying physics for the past 6 hours. Yet still basic math eludes me... :P But thanks for the refresher!)

Author Reply: I remember this being posed to us in a class on logic and rhetoric when I was in college. Powers of multiples can be overwhelming at times.

Linda HoylandReviewed Chapter: 16 on 12/16/2010
Sorry I'm so behind with these, but at last I've caught up.I enjoyed them all,especially the White Tree and the birth of the kittens.I also loved the chess board.I recall reading somewhere there would not be enough grain in the world if you could double it on each square!

Author Reply: I remember--two to the sixty-third power is a VERY large number! Heh! So glad you're enjoying these!

CairistionaReviewed Chapter: 16 on 12/16/2010
Such a smart boy, our Estel!

Author Reply: That he must have been. But with the ancestors he had, what could we expect? Thanks so!

Kaylee ArafinwielReviewed Chapter: 16 on 12/16/2010
You know, I seem to remember doing a similar math problem...now if I could only recall what the sequence was called. It's not the Fibonacci series, although that's just as much trouble, if not worse!

Kaylee Arafinwiel

Author Reply: I remember it from a logic class in college. And I can't remember the sequence, either. I found it fascinating to contemplate the numbers involved.

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