The rice and chessboard problem: why exponential growth fools your brain

A chess legend asks for one grain of rice on the first square and twice as many on each next one. By the last square, the board needs more rice than the whole world grows in 500 years. Learn exponential growth, the kind of growth your brain gets wrong: why the guess is so low, why a doubling pond gives almost no warning, the doubling time hidden in compound interest, debts and outbreaks, and the S-curve where every real doubling ends.