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Subject: Re: Is there a limit on our ability to compute endgame tablebases?

Author: Ricardo Gibert

Date: 20:47:11 05/28/02

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On May 28, 2002 at 22:28:32, Russell Reagan wrote:

>On May 28, 2002 at 17:18:37, J. Wesley Cleveland wrote:
>
>>Currently, processor speed and hard disk size are also increasing exponentially.
>>As long as this continues, we will be able to generate larger and larger
>>tablebases.
>
>If this is the case, then it's obviously growing at a much lower exponential
>rate, since the 5-man tablebases can be generated in a matter of hours and will
>fit on almost any new computer's hard drive, and the 6-man tablebase will take
>several years to complete and will probably not fit on any new computer's hard
>drive even in a few years when they are completed.
>
>So the problem still exists. The rate of growth of the size and space used by
>the tablebases is increasing at a much higher rate than the speed and storage
>capacity of computers, so the problem still exists regardless of whether both
>factors are growing at an exponential rate.
>
>Russell

Even though the exponential rates are different the ratios of the rates between
hard disk space, cpu speed, tablebase size are constants as long as the model of
exponential growth holds in each case e.g. if item X grows at rate a^t and item
Y grows at b^t where t is time, then a^t/b^t = a/b = some constant.

You're comparing the time it takes to generate an EGTB on the same hardware when
the capabilities of hardware actually vary with time in a exponential way for
the forseeable future.

WC actually made an astute point.



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