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Subject: Re: Mathematical How!!!

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 09:58:35 05/21/99

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On May 21, 1999 at 12:49:59, KarinsDad wrote:
[snip]
>Dann,
>
>Where did you come up with this 100 bit possibility?
>
>It seems extremely unlikely that this is true for 2 reasons. One, is that the
>10^30 board positions is many many magnitudes lower than even the most
>aggressive minimum number of positions estimate that I have ever read.
>
>Secondly, after spending many hours on attempting to decrease the minimum even
>to 160 bits, I cannot even fathom a paradigm shift (such as a compression scheme
>after getting to the 170+ bit range) that would enable someone to decrease the
>documented minimum (of approximately 173 bits) by over 40%. This seems absurd to
>me.
>
>Is this just a computer chess urban myth?
From fewbits.txt:

"APPROACH #5:

J. Nievergelt sent me this astonishing claim:

>It should be possible in under 100 bits. If interested, read:

>J Nievergelt: Information content of chess positions, ACM SIGART Newsletter
>62, 13-14, April 1977.

>reprinted in:
>Information content of chess positions: Implications for game-specific
>knowledge of chess players, 283-289 in Machine Intelligence 12, (eds. J. E.
>Hayes, D. Michie, E. Tyugu) , Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991.

I have not had a chance to check the reference, but I think 100 bits is
incredibly few. In effect, it means specifying the state of each square
in 1.5 bits, or the state of each piece in 3 or 4 bits."

J. Nievergelt has promised to send me a postscript document when he gets back
into country.  I am awaiting that document with baited breath.




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