Anybody have an absolutely absurd ***LOVE*** for math and statistical calculations?

[Warik]

I just had a thought.

I wonder how many possible chess games can possibly be played.

Like... from start to finish. Let's say you have the board set up from scratch, and you want to see how many possible combinations of moves from start to endgame (be it by win, lose, or draw) there are.

If you absolutely love this kind of stuff... then there's something for you to keep you occupied when you're bored. =) I'd be very interested in the answer.

Please hand in your exams at the end of the hour. Remember to show all work.

=)

-Warik

 

[Burnboy]

652,275
that was easy

 

[danielson]

what has that university done to you warik


its fair enough though i guess. im interested in science. if im curious about someting i usually check it out.

 

[Sailor_Girl]

 

[Warik]

=(

 

[Warik]

what has that university done to you warik


its fair enough though i guess. im interested in science. if im curious about someting i usually check it out.

I just had the most brilliant idea for the first ever unbeatable chess AI. The only problem is that I don't think any computer in existence today (nope, not even that new one they built that does 13 trillion calculations per second) could make a single move using it in under, oh, 16 years or so.

Oh well.

-Warik

 

[Frackal]

13 terahertz is it? What kind of computer is that? Quantum????

 

[Burnboy]

no praise or my answer?

 

[BackDoc]

I found this quote:


"(starting off) There are 20 possible moves for white. There are 20 * 20 = 400 possible moves for black, depending on what white does. Then there are 400 * 20 = 8,000 for white. Then there are 8,000 * 20 = 160,000 for black, and so on. If you were to fully develop the entire tree for all possible chess moves, the total number of board positions is about 10 to the 120th power, give or take a few. That's a very big number. For example, there have only been 10 to the 26th power number nanoseconds since the big bang."

At this point my brain shut down.

However, the most massive number would be the total combination of games based on the position of the pieces in respect to the order of total possible moves (for instance, one game differs only in knight to d2 from b3 instead of to c1 from b3...that would potentially be a figure requiring symbols instead of numbers, I would think.