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Subject: Re: Lies.. Damn Lies & Statistics!

Author: Roger D Davis

Date: 00:43:21 01/13/05

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On January 13, 2005 at 00:41:05, chandler yergin wrote:

>On January 12, 2005 at 21:56:52, Jason Kent wrote:
>
>>On January 12, 2005 at 21:47:23, chandler yergin wrote:
>>
>>>On January 12, 2005 at 21:41:47, Michael Yee wrote:
>>>
>>>>On January 12, 2005 at 21:36:05, chandler yergin wrote:
>>>>>On January 12, 2005 at 21:28:02, Michael Yee wrote:
>>>>>>On January 12, 2005 at 21:07:42, chandler yergin wrote:
>>>>>>>On January 12, 2005 at 21:03:54, Michael Yee wrote:
>>>>
>>>>[snip]
>>>>
>>>>>>>>What you just said is correct since you're talking about the *tree* of moves.
>>>>>>>>But Uri and Dann are talking about the *set* of unique positions (many of which
>>>>>>>>can arise through different move orders). So you and they are talking about
>>>>>>>>different (mathematical) objects--trees (or paths in a tree) and graphs (or
>>>>>>>>nodes in a graph).
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>By the way, just because some quantity is large (or infinite) doesn't mean you
>>>>>>>>can't prove something about it mathematically. For instance, you can prove that
>>>>>>>>a geometric series (e.g., 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ...) convergences to a number even
>>>>>>>>though their are an infinite number of terms.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Michael
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Yeah.. ya can compute Pi to a Billion or so digits...
>>>>>>>I round off at 3.1416...
>>>>>>>Close enough for me..
>>>>>>>So What?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Ur missing the point.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Actually, I don't think I'm missing your point. What you seem to be saying is
>>>>>>this:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>(1) There are approx 10^120 chess positions in the *tree* of moves
>>>>>>(2) There aren't even that many atoms in the universe
>>>>>>(3) Therefore, it's impossible to "mathematically prove" anything about chess
>
>YOU GOT IT!
>Thank You!
>
>


There are, however, more numbers than there are atoms---infinitely more---and
yet we have many proofs about numbers.

Roger



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