Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ucsd!sdcc6!beowulf!velasco From: velasco@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Gabriel Velasco) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Chess question Message-ID: Date: 14 Mar 91 05:28:38 GMT References: <63149@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> <4657@osc.COM> <1991Mar14.021924.26728@ddsw1.MCS.COM> Sender: news@sdcc6.ucsd.edu Lines: 30 zane@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Sameer Parekh) writes: >>In article <63149@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> pmm@acsu.buffalo.edu (patrick m >>mullhaupt) writes: >>> Recently a friend of mine claimed that it had been *proven* >>>through game theory that chess was a win for white. I find this very >>>hard to believe and would appreciate any references or comments on the >>>topic. > I think it would be possible to prove given a massive >computer using a recursive search, but I don't think such a computer >exists. It may be provable using game theory, but to prove it by using a computer would require an exhaustive state-space search. I can't remember where I heard this, but someone came up with a theoretical limit to the number of computations per second possible per gram of matter. They showed that if the entire mass of the Earth were converted into computing material that could compute at this theoretical limit it would take several hundreds of thousands of years to do an exhaustive state-space search of a chess game. My mind may have exaggerated this memory, but I think it correct. Maybe someone out there knows what I'm refering to. -- ________________________________________________ <>___, / / | ... and he called out and said, "Gabriel, give | /___/ __ / _ __ ' _ / | this man an understanding of the vision." | /\__/\(_/\/__)\/ (_/_(/_/|_ |_______________________________________Dan_8:16_|