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From: gary@mit-eddie.UUCP (Gary Samad)
Newsgroups: net.math,net.puzzle,net.games,net.misc
Subject: Re: Games Magazine
Message-ID: <2306@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 5-Jul-84 23:18:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.2306
Posted: Thu Jul  5 23:18:55 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Jul-84 01:18:51 EDT
References: <498@whuxle.UUCP>
Distribution: net.math,net.puzzle,net.games,net.misc
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 24

><

Ah, I had that same flash: "Why not use my PC to exaustively crunch
the possibilities in a Games contest to get the highest score in a
pseudo-pinball machine"

I feverishly constructed a program to do a depth first search and that
even allowed me to suspend it's work and restart it later (I really used
the machine!)  I let it run for an entire weekend.  On Monday with great
expectations I checked the results.  Alas, it had done much work but
was not finished!  After a quick calculation it dawned on me: if I 
rewrote it to run on an IBM mainframe it would be finished in a mere
3 million years!

I've found that to be true with all Games contests so far.  I believe that
they, in fact, conciously choose puzzles with a large number of permutations
and that are "not computable".

Now, a computer may be used as a tool to explore more deeply paths that
you, the human, have selected; but, an exaustive search is out of the question!

	Gary Samad
	{decvax!genrad,ihnp4}!mit-eddie!gary