Number of chess positions and molecules in the universe

and i thought the stalemate thread was bad!

How many molecules in a pizza?

A related conjecture:

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/more-puzzles/fermats-last-pizza

eat up Stevie!!  it'll only go cold if you get the calculator out.

Ye i think i'll just take a quick guess....Ermmm.... 10 to the power of pepperoni..Right now i'm starvin..

nice!  they had a good sense of humour back then.

I'm much more interested in Del Shannon's estimate.

Hmm, I wa-wa-wa-wa-wonder.....

ooh, it really makes me wonder...

Well, the thing to remember about tablebases is that the positions (which presumably couldn't actually be stored on a single atom) are only the nodes -- the legal connections between them (the edges) are also necessary to capture.  The difference between the two is (necessarily) the number of legal positions vs. the number of legal games.

Presumably the theory above only considers the nodes (positions).

Huh!?.....My little runnaway dadadadada my runaway

This thread definitely needs a theremin...

(Come to think of it, most threads could use a theremin.)

How many grains of sand are there in all the world's beaches, give or take a grain? I'm sure chess would win again .