"The bank accepted the Dollar under that understanding, together with another condition imposed by this John Jones, namely, that the interest was to be compounded annually. That meant that at the close of each year, the bank was to credit the account of John Jones's fortieth descendant with three one-hundredths of the account as it stood at the beginning of the year. "History tells us little more concerning this John Jones--only that he died in the year 1931, or ten years afterward, leaving several children. "Now you gentlemen who are taking mathematics under Professor L127M72421Male, of the University of Mars, will remember that where any number such as X, in passing through a progressive cycle of change, grows at the end of that cycle by a proportion p, then the value of the original X, after n cycles, becomes X(1 + p)^n. "Obviously, in this case, X equalled one Dollar; p equalled three one-hundredths; and n will depend upon any number of years which we care to consider, following the date of deposit. By a simple calculation, those of you who are today mentally alert can check up the results that I shall set forth in my lecture. "At the time that John Jones died, the amount in the First National Bank of Chicago to the credit of John Jones the fortieth, was as follows." The professor seized the chalk and wrote rapidly upon the oblong space: 1931 10 years elapsed $1.34 "The peculiar sinuous hieroglyphic," he explained, "is an ideograph representing the Dollar. "Well, gentlemen, time went on as time will, until a hundred years had passed by. The First National Bank still existed, and the locality, Chicago, had become the largest center of population upon the earth. Through the investments which had taken place, and the yearly compounding of interest, the status of John Jones's deposit was now as follows." He wrote: 2021 100 years elapsed $19.10 "In the following century, many minor changes, of course, took place in man's mode of living; but the so-called socialists still agitated widely for the cessation of private ownership of wealth; the First National Bank still accepted Dollars for safe keeping, and the John Jones Dollar still continued to grow. With about thirty-four generations yet to come, the account now stood: 2121 200 years elapsed $364 "And by the end of the succeeding hundred years, it had grown to what constituted an appreciable bit of exchange value in those days--thus: 2221 300 years $6,920 "Now the century which followed contains an important date. The date I am referring to is the year 2299 A.D., or the year in which every human being born upon the globe was registered under a numerical name at the central bureau of the National Eugenics Society. In our future lessons which will treat with that period of detail, I shall ask you to memorize that date.