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Subject: Re: I discussed the Question about Chess being solved

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 17:38:32 01/18/05

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On January 18, 2005 at 20:27:48, Uri Blass wrote:

>On January 18, 2005 at 20:18:32, Dann Corbit wrote:
>
>>On January 18, 2005 at 20:01:21, Uri Blass wrote:
>>
>>>On January 18, 2005 at 19:45:36, Anthony Cozzie wrote:
>>>
>>>>Chandler, your statement "chess cannot be solved by computers" is patently
>>>>WRONG.  Zappa on my opteron can solve chess, it would just take a VERY long time
>>>>to do so. TSCP on a PDA can solve chess, it would just take even longer.
>>>
>>>I know nothing about zappa but I am sure that tscp cannot solve chess.
>>>
>>>It has limited depth of 32 plies based on my memory so it will never search
>>>lines that are longer than 32 plies.
>>>
>>>I believe that zappa also cannot solve chess.
>>>
>>>possible reasons except the reason of maximal depth are:
>>>1)zappa use null move pruning that is not correct so it may miss some zugzwang.
>>>2)zappa has some bug that will cause it to crash after 12345678910111213 nodes
>>>It never search that number of nodes so you never found that bug.
>>>3)There is no hardware that live forever and you will get an hardware crash
>>>after 1234 years of search regardless of the hardware that you use.
>>>4)God decided that this world has only 123456789 years to live and zappa needs
>>>more time to solve chess so it simply not fast enough.
>>
>>What if there is a forced checkmate and it is 40 plies away from the root?
>>
>>You cannot know that the universe will end before Zappa finds it, even
>>pragmatically.
>
>I only said :"I believe that zappa cannot solve chess"
>
>>
>>Turning off null move will halve the search depth, but going to proof search
>>instead of evaluation may double it.  So even the loss of null move may not
>>matter.  Besides, even if it is still halved, you just double the time.
>>
>>It is a mistake to say that something cannot happen, no matter how absurd.
>>IMO-YMMV.
>
>I did not say that it cannot happen but only that I believe that it cannot
>happen.
>>
>>I believe that many smart people at one time believed that a computer would
>>never beat a GM.  And probably after that, many believed that a computer could
>>never beat the strongest player in the world.
>>
>>We do not know how hard it is to solve chess, except for the worst case.  It is
>>possible to stumble onto a solution tomorrow.
>
>Everything is possible but I believe that it will not be solved in the near
>future and that it will not solved by a program that exist today.

This is (of course) something that is a highly reasonable position, and not at
all like "Chess cannot be solved."

Of course, you know that very well.  I am only pointing out that the two
statements are nearly opposite:
"Chess cannot be solved"
"Chess might not be solved"
even though they sound very similar.




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