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September 24, 2009 1:56 pm
Speak up mathematicians! What is the definitive meaning of the word hundredfold? Does it really mean a hundred times? Or could it mean the number you would get by folding one a hundred times. 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, etc., which if I could figure out on my calculator has about 30 place settings.
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September 24, 2009 6:22 pm
Even speaking as a former math major, it would never have occurred to me to interpret the "-fold" suffix in terms of repeated doubling. Buddhism's "Eightfold Way" (the first familiar expression I could think of using this construction) explicitly lists eight instructions for living righteously, not 256.