Saturday, 20 December 2014

A Problem of Family Relations



         Every man or woman alive today had 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great – grand parents, 16 great great- grand parents, 32 great, great, great grandparents and so on.

         Let us take the case of Ram. Two generations ago Ram had 2 x 2 or 2², or 4 ancestors. Three generations ago he had 2 x 2 x 2 or 2ᶾ or 8 ancestors. Four generations ago he had 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 or 2⁴ or 16 ancestors.

         Assuming that there are 20 years to a generation; can you tell 400 years back how many ancestors did Ram have?

Answer:  1048576 - 400 years ago, that is 20 generations back, ram – for that matter each one of us had 2²⁰ or 1048576 ancestors.

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