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From: minsky@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Marvin Minsky)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Chess question
Message-ID: <5526@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Date: 18 Mar 91 23:00:15 GMT
References: <velasco.668928518@beowulf> <1991Mar18.045610.2977@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <18585@milton.u.washington.edu> <1991Mar18.184332.12001@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Reply-To: minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA
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I dimly recall that the 10 ^ 120 number of chess game estimate was in
Claude Shannon's original chess paper, and that it was based on
estimate about 30 possible moves  per position and some average length
of game.  I can't find the paper now.  Wasn't there something about
that in "Automata Studies" (ed. McCarthy and Shannon)?