🚀 go-pugleaf

In rec.games.chess.computer Sam Simpson <sam@samsimpson.com> wrote:

> "Robert Hyatt" <hyatt@crafty.cis.uab.edu> wrote in message
> news:9e514d$vgq$1@juniper.cis.uab.edu...
>> In rec.games.chess.computer Greg Kennedy <gmgk@earthlink.net> wrote:

> <SNIP>

>> >   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.   :-)
>>
>> I don't think it is solvable regardless of the kind of hardware someone
>> might assume will exist in 1,000 years.  That will barely scratch the
>> surface.

> Ouch, it's been said that predicting computational ability more than 5 years
> in the future is futile so I'd probably argue against this if you weren't an
> undisputed genius in this field!

> Looking at crypto (for example; it's all I know ;)) Professor Ron Rivest
> (the 'R' in RSA) predicted that a 129-bit factorization would take
> 40-quadrillion years whereas in reality it took just 8 months using idle
> cycles on computers around the globe.

> I don't think it's been shown conclusively that Quantum Computing could
> "solve chess" but I think it's likely that it will certainly help.  _At
> worst_, QC would reduce arbitrary problems by a square root, so the 2^168
> figure becomes 2^84 - not currently feasible but not so unimaginable.


It is still pretty big.  2^84 is close to 10^25.  one trillion years only
has 10^23 nanoseconds.  It's amazing what those powers of 10 do to things.
IE imagine a point in space so distant from the center of the universe that
the light from the "big bang" has not made it there yet.  if you take the
assumption that the universe is say 20 billion years old, that gives 
roughly 10^17 seconds.  since light travels at 186K miles per second, let's
call that 10^5 for simplicity.  That is a distance of only 10^22 miles.  Seems
oh so small.  In reality, it is oh-so-big.  A distance so large I can't begin
to grasp it.  

> --
> Regards,

> Sam Simpson
> http://www.scramdisk.clara.net/



-- 
Robert Hyatt                    Computer and Information Sciences
hyatt@cis.uab.edu               University of Alabama at Birmingham
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