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Subject: Re: Answer is here ...

Author: Mike Byrne

Date: 20:23:19 11/28/02

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On November 28, 2002 at 22:52:45, Uri Blass wrote:

>On November 28, 2002 at 22:40:42, Mike Byrne wrote:
>
>>On November 28, 2002 at 22:20:02, Tanya Deborah wrote:
>>
>>>On November 28, 2002 at 22:05:39, Mike Byrne wrote:
>>>
>>>>snip
>>>>>>
>>>>>>All your answers are welcome...
>>>>>>
>>>>>>My best Regards!
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Tanya.
>>>>>
>>>>>6.5104179521361946395624758693608e+308
>>>>>
>>>>>I know this is the exact number of chess positions, because I counted them one
>>>>>day using my Palm and Chess genius.
>>>>>
>>>>>But how do you count all the atoms in the universe?  I might need a newer Palm
>>>>>for that one ...hmmmm ....yea, I could that on of those new palms.
>>>>>
>>>>>Hold on - let me go talk to my wife and explain to her why I need a new palm.
>>>>>
>>>>>THANKS - You gave me the perfect reason for a new Palm - to count all the atoms
>>>>>in the universe.
>>>>>
>>>>>eh ...Does anybody want to help?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>got the answer for atoms - it's right here
>>>>
>>>>"
>>>>It seems, then, that the number of atoms in the Universe is at least about 4e78,
>>>>but perhaps as many as 6e79. I would suggest 1e79 as a reasonable estimate. That
>>>>is, 10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
>>>>000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 atoms.
>>>>"
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Thanks Mike, very nice page.  But how about the total number of chess
>>>positions???
>>>
>>> ,
>>>>http://www.sunspot.noao.edu/sunspot/pr/answerbook/universe.html
>>>>
>>>>looks like "positions in chess" beats "atoms in the universe" by a fair amount
>>>>....
>>>>
>>>>...now about the 32 man EGTB that I was thinking about - how many drives would I
>>>>need??
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>;>)
>>
>>
>>I gave you the number 6.5104179521361946395624758693608e+308 that is 6.5 x10 to
>>the 308 or just add 308 zeroes ...
>>
>>6,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
>
>Your number is wrong
>
>The number of positions is clearly smaller.

Yes you are correct -- clearly a big difference - I was counting games but after
second thought my second estimate is much close I believe. 1e154 or so.



>
>You gave an estimate for the number of games
>and this number is also wrong.

Show me.

>
>I rememeber that I wrote a program to find
>an upper bound for the number of chess positions
>and found that it is less than 10^48
>
>It is possible to search for it and maybe find it in the ccc search engine.
>
>Uri
>
>
>>
>>Now that number might be a little high - that was assuming on average of  35
>>moves for 100 moves or 200 ply.  35^200 is 6.5e308.  Most papers underestimate
>>the number of games to about 1e110 or so.  But even a 35 move game for 50 moves
>>or 100 ply will give you 2.5e154 (35^100) amd that is still larger than the
>>number of atoms in the universe.
>>
>>We know it's finite number and that it's more than the number of atoms in the
>>universe - I happened to write an English paper on this over 20 years ago.
>>
>>Now those many numbers - others come up with their own numbers - here's one I
>>just found on google by searching "legal chess games" his number is "just" under
>>my number I quickly calculated above by a factor of a 140 trillon or so.  (if
>>you were off by factor of 10 -- you would be 10x off so we're talking
>>140,000,000,000,000X - but what's a few hundred trillion between friends?  ;>)
>>
>>http://cypherpunks.venona.com/date/1994/04/msg00023.html
>>
>>Michael



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