1. In the book, The King's Chessboard by author David Birch, there is a noble king in a far away land. An individual, known as the "wise man," performs a service for his king, yet he refuses to be paid for said service by the king. The king insists that the wise man is compensated so the man offers the proposition of receiving a grain of rice for each of the checkers on a chessboard, where the amount doubles each for each checker. The King is oblivious to this idea and foolishly agrees leading to his stores of grain eventually going dry to the wise man.
2. This story is all about the concept of exponential growth. The wise man asks for an exponentially growing amount of rice from the checkers of the chessboard in the story. The pattern is 2^n, when is n greater than or equal to 0. The simplicity of how the concept of exponential growth is touched upon and explained in this tale is an excellent example of conceptual math literature.
3. I believe that literature is a great way for math ideas to be explained, especially when the books have clever stories to go along with the concepts which allow for the readers to follow along much better. I agree that books such as The King's Chessboard are a fantastic method for teaching children and any other readers alike mathematical concepts such as this one.
I like that this story explains a concept which is more complex then graphs. I feel like to often we shy away from more complex concepts because they are "too complicated". Thanks for sharing
ReplyDeletegood example, alec. this is one of my favorite math stories.
ReplyDeleteprofessor little