1. The King, the servant, and the conundrum

2. Once upon a time in a land not so far from here there lived a king…… He had a loyal servant who would advise him on all sorts of things…

3. One day the loyal servant comes to the King……. “I am getting old”, he says, “I have taken the decision to retire”

4. The King is shocked by this but can understand why he would want to leave. “I thank you for all these years of loyal service”, says the king, “I would like to give you a parting gift” “Thank you my King.” replies the servant. “I couldn’t possibly ask for anything.”

5. The King insists that he should have one parting gift. The servant thinks about it for a while…. Eventually he says. “I have decided to accept your offer.”

6. “You have a Chess board do you not?” says the servant. “Yes” replies the king. “Go and fetch it from the Games room” he says to another servant.

7. The servant returns. “All that I request is that each day you place a sum of money on the first square of the chess board. Each day you must place double the amount of money than the previous days amount. Do this until you run out of squares on the Chess board”

8. The King seems a little confused, why should such a loyal servant request so little? He agrees to fulfil the servants request and promptly places £0.01 on the first square of the Chess board.

9. How much money will the King have placed on the Chess board by the time he fills all 64 squares? Your task is to use a spreadsheet to work out the answer to this conundrum. There are two two formulas that you will need to work out.