🚀 go-pugleaf

> > Chess, is a theoretically finite activity. If my experience with end
game
> > tablebases is any indication, this fact is not impossible for a
computer.

snip

> Here is a terrifying thought:  If you make the raw assumption...


  What if you don't make such assumptions?



> that there
> are 10^50 chess positions possible (this is based on many attempts to
> find the smallest number of bits



  Assumming that in the future, all computers must use
"bits" for data storage.



> ... necessary to store any legal chess position
> plus enpassant status and castling status), then the tablebase generator
> has an interesting task:
>
> Assuming you could search one position per nanosecond, and assuming you
> could search for 1 trillion years, you only have searched 10^23 positions.
> You have a _long_ way to go.  At one position per picosecond, you are
> up to 10^26 positions.
>
> One problem:  The universe won't last one trillion years...



  Another assumption.  I believe that with all
these assumptions in the way, you wouldn't be
able to solve this problem, even given infinite
time.   :-)



  Here is another example of this kind of "reasoning:"

  Suppose that there are over one trillion grains of
sand on a beach.  Now, suppose that we are able to
recruit every human being on the planet to gather them,
and that each person can scoop up and carry hundreds
of grains each.  Can we move the beach?  Heck no-
while they are all there at the same place, at the same
time, they will either starve or else nobody will be able
to move, for it would be far too crowded!   So the
beach cannot be moved!  It is immoveable.  Just leave it
the heck alone!   :-)


   (note: man invents a device called a bulldozer, allowing
one man to move the beach by himself.)



   There are so many possible positions in chess that it
would be impossible to even count them!  How are we
going to solve chess if we don't even know how big it is?
  Let's assume there are only 50 bazillion different, unique
positions in chess.  Now, if it takes as little as ten Alpabits
to store each one, how many Alphabits do we need to
store them all?  Too many!  There aren't enough Alphabits
in the whole world to store them all!  Not to mention the
problems of insects and rats.  And how about cereal bowls?
We could never make enough to hold 'em all!

  Nosir.  It just can't be done.  Don't listen to those
silly radicals who say otherwise.  We can no more solve
chess than we can put a man on the moon.  Or blow up
the Earth, for that matter.


   (note: the Chinese invent gunpowder, then Nobel
invents dynamite, then comes the atomic bomb, then
Sputnik is launched, then "one small step for man,"
then...)

















     B O O M ! ! !





   Hyatt was right.  We never solved chess, but not
because it couldn't be done!    ;-)