After opening an ancient bottle you find on the beach, a Genie appears. In payment for his freedom, he gives you a choice either 50,000 gold coins or one magical gold coin. The magical gold coin will turn into two gold coins on the first day. The two coins will turn into four coins total at the end of two days. By the end or the third there will be eight gold coins total. The Genie explains that the magic coins will continue this pattern of doubling each day for one moon cycle, 28 days. Which prize do you choose?

HINT: IT HAS TO DO WITH EXPONENTS

AND PLEASE SHOW YOUR WORK

MAKE A TABLE TOO

I WILL GIVE YOU LOTS OF POINT TOO:)

Verified Answer :

You should choose the prize that gives you more coins. So you just need to figure out what's worth more, the 50,000 or the final amount of magical coins. 

You know that the magical coins double every day. So at the end of 28 days, it will have doubled 28 times (in other words, multiplied by 2, 28 times).

This would be \(2^{28}\) = 268,435,456 (if you just plug it into a calculator). 

If you want to show the amount of magical coins you'd have every day, it would look something like this:



Day
1 (
\(2^{1}\)) :
2
coins



Day
2 
(\(2^{2}\)) :
4
coins



Day
3 
(\(2^{3}\)) :
8
coins



Day
4
:
16
coins



Day
5
:
32
coins



Day
6
:
64
coins



Day
7
:
128
coins



Day
8
:
256
coins



Day
9
:
512
coins



Day
10
:
1,024
coins



Day
11
:
2,048
coins



Day
12
:
4,096
coins



Day
13
:
8,192
coins



Day
14
:
16,384
coins



Day
15
:
32,768
coins



Day
16
:
65,536
coins



Day
17
:
131,072
coins



Day
18
:
262,144
coins



Day
19
:
524,288
coins



Day
20
:
1,048,576
coins



Day
21
:
2,097,152
coins



Day
22
:
4,194,304
coins



Day
23
:
8,388,608
coins



Day
24
:
16,777,216
coins



Day
25
:
33,554,432
coins



Day
26
:
67,108,864
coins



Day
27
:
134,217,728
coins



Day
28
:
268,435,456
coins

So you'd have more with the magical coin. You should pick the magical coin.