Number 27, Egg Fried Rice?

Let me tell you a story...

The story goes that (once upon a time) the ruler or India was so pleased
with one of his palace wise men, who had invented the game of chess,
that he offered this wise man a reward of his own choosing.

The wise man, who was also a wise mathematician, told his Master that he
would like just one grain of rice on the first square of the chess
board, double that number of grains of rice on the second square, and so
on: double the number of grains of rice on each of the next 62 squares
on the chess board.

This seemed to the ruler to be a modest request, so he called for his
servants to bring the rice. How surprised he was to find that the rice
quickly covered the chess board, then filled the palace!

Let's stop here, and see just how many grains of rice this is.

The number of grains of rice on the last square can be written as "2 to
the 64th power", This means:

2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times
2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times
2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times
2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times
2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times
2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times
2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times
2

...or "2 times itself 64 times".

Which can be written as approximately: 18,446,744,070,000,000,000 (ish)

At 10 grains of rice per square inch of rice fields, that would mean
that the entire surface of the earth would have to be covered with rice
fields two times over, oceans included.

The point is that the strategy of growing the Church one person at a
time is good - but if we could just harness the multiplication theory
and set up churches that would reproduce themselves we'd be onto a
pretty good thing! Just a thought....:o)