Once upon a time there was a King who had a beautiful daughter. Many Princes asked to marry her. To each of them, the King said "If you want to marry the Princess, you must first complete this task. On this chessboard, place one grain of wheat on the first square, two grains on the second square and so on until the chessboard is full". Eventually, the Princess grew bored and ran off with a computer programmer from Scunthorpe because none of the Princes was ever able to complete the task the King had set.