• f314@lemmy.world
      58·
      2 days ago

      I have no idea about the meme format (though I see this is a cross post from anti memes), but the picture is a reference to a famous legend about exponential growth:

      Allegedly, the inventor of chess asked the ruler of India (where it was invented) for payment in the form of rice, with a single grain in the first square and the amount doubling for each subsequent square. The ruler agreed, believing the amount to be small, but soon found out there was not enough rice in India to pay the man.

    • slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.orgEnglish
      21·
      2 days ago

      There is a story about a guy who got a wish from a king or something. He said he wanted a grain of rice on a chessboard and double it on every square. The king didn’t exect much of it and the guy got a shit ton of rice.

      I think he got killed for being a douche.

      It doesn’t really make sense from the picture, because the grains just grow randomly insted of exponentially

      • jaybone@lemmy.zipEnglish
        12·
        2 days ago

        They are growing exponentially on the diagonal from the right downward and to the left.

        I’m wondering why they chose that pattern instead of going straight across a row or column.

        • Wolf314159@startrek.website
          5·
          2 days ago

          There are lots of ways to fill a 2D space with a single non-crossing path. I’m sure counting the ways could be interesting to some. I guess you’d prefer a zig-zag oriented orthogonal to the sides, rather than the corners. This orientation fills the frame of a photo a little better though given the perspective. You could also make a spiral. I think the Hilbert space filling curve is way more interesting, but probably would make for a confusing photo.

          • jaybone@lemmy.zipEnglish
            1·
            1 day ago

            I was thinking it would be interesting to see the functions for a given diagonal in OPs scheme, versus a row or column based approach. Then it occurred to me it might be easy to transform between these variants.

    • hOrni@lemmy.world
      9·
      2 days ago

      I don’t get it either. If I had to guess, I’d say there’s Loss hidden there somewhere.

    • Manjushri@piefed.socialEnglish
      16·
      2 days ago

      Person who knows asks the person who doesn’t know to pay them in grains of rice by putting a grain of rice on one square of a chess board and double it for each other square. So one in the first, two in the second, four in the third, etc. So 1 doubled 64 times. The one who don’t understand thinks they’re getting a deal and it’ll end up as a modest amount of rice. The one who does understand knows that the total will be 1.8x1019 grains of rice on the board. Hence they are both smiling… at first.

      For reference, assuming an average grain of rice is 5 millimeters long, laying all that rice end-to-end would stretch 9.75 light years.

      • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
        10·
        2 days ago

        Ohhh it’s an “at first” take? Thats kinda not how the meme works. I know the whole story, but that would normally have one person smiling, the other not.