Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 15:11:31 02/22/02
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On February 22, 2002 at 17:09:17, William H Rogers wrote: > >>Why is 4000 "less realistic" than 3000? It's just a number that is used to >>determine RELATIVE strength between two or more players in a >>game/tournament/pool. >> >>jm >John, lets say just for the sake of making a point that 4000 turns out to be >perfect chess. Can we choose 4001 instead? It's prime. >If that number is perfect then eventually players or computers >would reach it at some point and if they do then everyones elses scores would be >adjusted, People are getting faster and faster all the time. At what point will they run the 100 meters in less than one second? It is possible to have continual (even an infinite number of) improvements and yet never cross a certain barrier. For instance, a man might train and jump 4 feet high. Then he trains some more, and jumps 6'. He continues to train and jumps 6.5 feet. He trains harder still and jumps 6.75 feet. I imagine that you can guess that this progression (add 1/2 as much improvement as the time before) has a limit and it is not infinitely high. >but being that we are closely approaching 3000, humans that is, what >would happen if we set that as the top goal. All scores would be readjusted and >after people got used to them, all would be happy. There is no such thing as an >infinite number in chess, because it is a game and has a final goal. Well, if we add up all the elementary particles in the universe and square that number, it is less than the number of possible different chess games. Sometimes, "big but finite" might as well be infinite. >The problem >lies in who can discover the shortest way to obtain that goal. How do we know that there is a shortest path? Perhaps there are 10^50th paths that all are optimal and all exactly the same length. >Most programmers work towards obtaining that goal, from start to finish, but in >other areas of science people sometimes work back from the finish to the >begining. Both have merits. >:) There are lots of path algorithms. Chess is quite a jungle and I haven't found the right machete yet -- in computer programming or personal play. ;-)
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