Background Story
In primary school, my teacher told us the story of the Wheat and Chessboard Problem.
It was strange because I didn't know what it was about, and why he was telling us the story. Little did I know it would turn out to be a mountainous task for the rest of the day.
先来讲一讲我的故事，我在小学的时候，老师给我们讲小麦和棋盘的问题。后来我没有想到这个问题竟然花了我一天时间去解算。
Wheat and Chessboard Problem
小麦和棋盘的问题
The story is about the inventor of Chess, and the reward he demanded for inventing the board game. The ruler at the time asked the inventor of Chess, what reward he would like in return for creating this game. His reply was itself a math problem.
这个故事其实是关于国际象棋的发明者，和他跟国王要求的赏金。当时的国王问这个发明者，你帮我们创造了这个游戏，你想用什么奖励作为回报。这个发明者的答复是一个数学问题。
The Chessboard in terms of squares has the dimensions 8 squares by 8 squares, making the total number of squares on the Chessboard 8 x 8 = 64.
这个棋盘是8x8的，所以总共有64个格子。
The creator of Chess proposed that starting with 1 grain on the first square, the ruler gives him double the number of grains in the previous square in the subsequent square and so forth until the 64th square.
So, first square one grain, second square two, third with four, etc.
国际象棋的发明者提出，在第一个格子放1粒小麦，在之后的格子成倍数放小麦（第2格是第1格的1倍，第3格是第2格的1倍。。。）直到第64个格子，全部格子里的小麦加起来就是他要的奖赏。
Image By Andy0101 (talk) - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10700518
Hearing this, the ruler laughs, expecting the request to be more than what was asked.
听到这里，国王笑了，觉得发明者要的奖赏怎么会这么少。
The treasurers informed the ruler that the number of grains of rice would far exceed their ability to pay out. Infact, the number is estimated to be larger than the number of individual grains of sand in existence on the entire planet.
当财务人员告诉国王，整个国家的小麦都不够发明者所求的奖赏。他所要求的小麦甚至比整个世界上沙子的数量都多。
No one is certain what happened to the inventor of chess, he was either promoted or executed.
后来没有人知道，这个发明者是被升职了还是被处死了。
Little Curious me
好奇的我
The teacher asked us to work out how many grains of rice would be at the final square of the chessboard, the first person to get the correct answer would get a little prize.
老师要我们去算第64格小麦有多少，第一个算完的人将得到奖励。
I wanted the prize, but more than that, I wanted to beat everyone else to working out the answer!
我想要得到奖励，更重要的是我想打败其他同学当第一个算完的人。
I didn't know about exponentials during primary school (yes that's surprising because i'm Chinese!) so I calculated the total number of grains by hand like so, doubling each square for the next square's value.
在小学的我还不知道指数函数（这个是有点惊讶，因为我是中国人，数学应该很好）所以我手工一点一点笔算出来。
| Square | Grains |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 2 |
| 3 | 4 |
| 4 | 8 |
| 5 | 16 |
| 6 | 32 |
| 7 | 64 |
| 8 | 128 |
| 9 | 256 |
| 10 | 512 |
| .. | .. |
| 64 | 18,446,744,073,709,600,000 |
After 64 squares, and almost an entire day of doing manual addition without a calculator, I was really mentally tired from the exercise, and I got the answer about 20 minutes faster than my closest rival.
经过64个格子的计算，几乎一整天的努力，我精疲力尽，但是我比大家快20分钟完成了解答。
All good things come to an end
I was so happy and proud to be the first to get the correct answer, I couldn't wait for the teacher to give me my prize and that he did. It was 1 RMB for my troubles and I was estatic to receive it. For a little girl at that time, 1 RMB was a lot of money! Unfortunately I was so excited that as I ran home to tell my parents about winning the prize, I some how managed to lose the 1 RMB that I had won.
好事将尽
我很高兴拿到了老师的奖赏1块钱，但是我在回家的路上把这1块钱丢了。我非常难过。
Moral of the story
Of course, there are several take away's from this story, the obvious ones are that spending a day doing arithmetic when you can work this out without brute forcing is a little silly. Secondly, money is money, it hurts to even lose 1 RMB!
这个事情给我的启示
- 我学到比人工手算更快的方式。
- 就算只是1块钱，丢了也会难过。
Finally, and the point I've been wanting to get to, is about how exponential growth can seem like nothing at first, and quickly become unthinkably quick, or unthinkably large.
重点是几何级数增长，刚开始很慢，往后却是无法想象的快。
It dawned on me that if I could introduce 1 new person to steemit every week, and that new person invites a new person every week aswell, and so forth, then in less than a year, ~34 weeks approximately, the entire population of the earth could be signed up to steemit!
这个事情给我启发，如果我每周介绍1个新的用户来用Steemit，之后我介绍的用户每周也介绍一个新的人来用等等，这样不到1年时间，大概34周之后，全球的人就都在用Steemit。
Even though it is an unlikely scenario, I would still like to start a trend of people actively introducing people to steemit. Because if we all had the same tenacity, we could definitely approach exponential growth if not achieve it in a really short time frame!
虽然这个只是美好的愿望，可能会不太现实，但是从我做起向Steemit用户介绍第一个新人，从而建立这个模式，让Steemit用户达到不停增长的趋势。
介绍一个朋友
For most of us, and particularly the ones unexposed to crypto, Steemit can be a little bit daunting. Without a doubt, it is already the lowest entry barrier crypto platform available, but some things can still be problematic. For a content based social network, it can be difficult to get eyes on your posts when you first start out. Introducing a friend helps the newcomers by giving them a little bit more exposure from someone who already has a bit of exposure themselves. Secondly, it allows the followers to filter out what new users they might want to follow.
对于大多数人，尤其从未接触电子币的人来说，Steemit还是有一些难用。毋庸置疑，这已经是最容易入境电子币的平台，但是新用户可能会碰到一些困难。对于一个以博客内容为主的社交网络来说，一开始可能会很少人关注你，也读不到你的帖子。但是通过我介绍一个朋友，帮助这些新人更快的得到他人的关注。同时，这样也能够让关注我的人透过我的推荐去关注这些新人。
In this spirit, I'm making my first (of many to come!) direct introduction of a friend to Steemit
所以我来做第一个向Steemit介绍朋友的帖子。
Please welcome my dear friend @fishyontherun
欢迎我的好朋友 @fishyontherun
I've met @fishyontherun in Primary School, when we were just 9 years old.
She is without a doubt a very important person in my life.
She has been studying in New Zealand for most of her advanced studies and has just returned to Beijing to work the year before last.
我们相识在小学，所以9岁的时候就认识了。她在我的人生中一直是我重要的朋友。她之前一直在新西兰留学，前年刚刚回到北京工作。
@fishyontherun is a very talented Architect and this is also her current line of work.
Like me, in her spare time, she likes to share anything and everything regarding her life, work, fun etc.
Hope everybody can support her as she begins her journey on Steemit!
她现在是一名优秀的建筑设计师。
她和我一样喜欢分享生活中的趣事，希望大家可以支持她和她的文章。