Exponential growth

A fascinating advance in that direction - to be sure, without atoms at all in mind- has long been practiced in the high art of the professional Chinese chef. We dropped in on such a virtuoso splitter of matter.

Chef Mark kneaded high-gluten white flour carefully along with the other ingredients of noodle dough in correct proportions: three cups of flour, half as much water, one-quarter teaspoon each of salt and baking soda. He vigorously swung and stretched the lump of dough out into a heavy single strand the length of his full two-arm span. Then he folded that long thick strand in half, and pulled the dough out again into its original length, so that two thinner strands now passed from one hand to the other. Repeat, repeat, repeat...

Chef Mark: "Hello, everybody. I am the chef of the Dragon House in Wildwood, New Jersey. Today I will make the kind of noodles called so. Make the dough strong and smooth, keep the dough smooth and strong, and you will have noodles on the table."

Fold one time: the dough becomes two noodles. Two times, and it becomes four noodles. Three, four times...ten, eleven, now twelve doublings, or four thousand and ninety-six noodles.

Wow! Almost five feet long, they are called dragon's beard noodles -very fine, like a human hair. In two minutes, Chef Mark had drawn out four miles of fine noodles. (They were really two or three times as thick as human hair.) Legendary chefs of the past have gone to thirteen doublings, while experienced home noodle makers can complete eight or ten. But consider that if Chef Mark had continued the doubling, it would take only thirty-five more steps of doubling, six minutes' work, before he would have reached what we know as atomic size. Of course, the actual procedure would fail long before that idealized atomic limit is reached.

The tantalizing nature of the doubling process is that the subdivision is so rapid. Some forty-six doublings would make noodles of true atomic fineness, in principle. But note that such an incredible feat would produce not a mere few miles of dragon's beard, but noodles long enough to stretch to Pluto and beyond!

Once upon a time, long ago there was a king who ruled a prosperous land. Poverty was unknown there and every person was gainfully employed. Hence the sight of a beggar making his way along Main Street caused quite a stir in the capital of the land. The king demanded to see this strange man. When brought to him the beggar revealed that he indeed did not have any possessions nor any money for the purchase of food. The king magnanimously offered all-you-can-eat meals for the rest of the week and clean clothes so that the beggar could continue his journey to the next land. Surprisingly, the beggar declined the royal offer and asked for a modest favor. The king demanded to know what the wish was. The beggar humbly requested a grain of rice for the first day, two on the second, four on the third day and so on - doubling the previous days contribution.

The king looked through the window at the overflowing granaries and almost accepted it when his grand vizier, remembering something that he had learnt in Elements of Numbers (Math 201 at the local University) advised his highness that he should reconsider. To calculate the implication of the wish he pulled out a dusty abacus to perform exponential calculations. He fumbled with it for a while but could not express the magnitude of the numbers involved because he ran out of beads. The king getting impatient with his vizier on such a simple wish from a poor man, officially granted the beggar the wish. Little did he know that he had sounded the death knell of his reign.

The next day the beggar came to claim his grain of rice. The townsfolk laughed at the beggar and said that he should have taken the king's kind offer for a full meal instead of the measly grain of rice. On the second day he was back for the two grains. A week later, he brought a teaspoon for the 128 grains that was due to him. In two weeks it was a non-negligible amount of half a kilo. At the end of the month it had grown to a whopping 35 tons. A few days later the king had to declare bankruptcy. That is how long it was needed to bring down the kingdom.