Chess will never be solved, here's why

The problem is the reverse, you don't understand how technology is progressing or how it compares to the complexity of chess. First of all, it's well known that the rate at which processors are improving isn't as fast. Moore's law runs into multiple problems. A big one being we can't miniaturize transistors anymore without running into quantum effects.

Anyway, a common error among ignorant people seems to be they think chess is "really" hard and computers are "really" fast, so they assume it's roughly equivalent, but it's not.

...another person that really needs to read this and the other various threads on the subject.

It's already been established that quantum computers *cannot* work on solving chess as they sit now.  Quantum computers currently cannot store and read back any intermediate results, because those reads are destructive.  The entire solving of chess would have to be done in one pass.  It's not like traditional computing where you can output intermediate steps and refer to them later.  Quantum computing is more like a self contained black box, where you pass the input data, then the answer is worked on via matrices flipping states. Reading those matrices destroys them in the process, so you can only do it once.

Think of it like The Imitation Game.  Turing's computer just sits there and rotates cylinders endlessly until an answer dings at the end...or, it doesn't.  You can't know what it has accomplished until it is done.  If you stop it in the middle, you have nothing comprehensible.

There could perhaps be some sort of hybrid computing done with quantum computers that interact with more traditional storage...but then you run right back into the problem of materials requirements being even larger to the point where a single solar system is not going to cut the mustard.

Tell you what...when humanity has built a space elevator and is routinely pushing asteroids to Lagrange points for mining, then we should revisit this issue .

There are already dozen and dozens of pages posted debunking these exact arguments.  Here's my own back of the envelope calculation from 2018:

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/will-computers-ever-solve-chess?page=162#comment-36272882

4E6 vs 13E9 is only 3 orders of magnitude... of course that's quite a lot if your measuring stick is linear, but it's an imperceptible change compared to what's needed to solve chess.

It's like removing 1 bucket of water from the ocean and calling your friend on another continent to see if they noticed, then you remove 1000 buckets and call them again to see if they noticed. There's no difference.

Yeah by people who don't understand how quantum computing scales against conventional computing.

Where are the the electrons in a Hydrogen molecule? Come now, it is the simplest molecule that there is....

If you asked me that 24 years ago, I would have been as confused as you are now (well maybe not quite so confused....I guess you are probably googling what an electron is...but anyway, you get the point.) In the modern world the function of where an electron is in molecular hydrogen  can be done on most people's mobile phone.

A qubit isn't like a bit, branch prediction can give you extraordinary results in computing with bits, in the quantum world you can get whatever is the predicate from the substrate. I actually think that standard computation can solve chess, quantum computing at a scale slightly beyond what we have now will do so trivially.

It's you that does not understand.  Quantum computing is only applicable to subsets of traditional computing problems, and solving chess is not one of them.  Cryptography, weather prediction, and various "chaos" problems are.

Already blew the last guy that put forth your premise out of the water awhile back...heck, maybe it was you.  He tried to go on and on about how quantum computers were already running Python, etc. and could tackle every problem traditional computers do, and I had to show him the reduced instruction set quantum computing actually supports that was covered in his own supporting links, and go through the exact same explanations of quantum computers and the problem of destructive reads, etc.

You're just laboring under the delusion that solving chess is a smaller problem than other problems people talk about undertaking with current and imminent technologies, because solving a relatively straightforward game seems like it should be trivial.  But it isn't, it's far, far larger than any dataset humanity has ever dreamed of tackling.

You might as well say we're going to colonize Andromeda with FTL driven ships.  Yeah, maybe someday, but making a prediction about it now is basically a call to magic ala Clarke's Law.

Hahahahahaha!

Yeah, quantum computing is just confined to solving a few problems that traditional computing can't get to....

Yeah....I can certainly see how hundred of billions of an analogy indeterminate  juxtapositions will fail where a few million ones or zeros fail - why do us precious few even persevere  with such a pointless enterprise?

Oh, please tell us more about your steam powered master machines.

(You don't even have the vaguest idea of the scale of the concept do you! Do you know what an electron is? Do you know what a neutrino is? [Do you know what science is?])

@5084
"All those who have been involved in the peer-reviewed research in this field understand that "all opposition" includes all legal moves." ++ Then it would have been worded 'against all legal moves'. Oppose = to strive against, resist

"heuristics that can have exceptions"
++ No.
'Other things being equal, any material gain, no matter how small, means success'
Is a perfect heuristic. It has two parts. Is there material gain? Are other things equal? If both are yes, then the position is won. The first part is easy and a computer can do it in a split second. The second part is trickier. For many positions even grandmasters wlll be unsure if all other things are equal or not. Then more calculation is needed. Fater 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? white loses material. All other things are equal. White loses.

Another heuristic: pieces are better in the center. 1 Nf3 does more for the center than 1 Nh3. Thus 1 Nh3 opposes less to achieving the draw than 1 Nf3.

Another heuristic: except in certain conditions endgames with opposite colored bishops are draws. Now in this game https://www.iccf.com/game?id=1164259 they have reached an endgame with opposite colored bishops. The conditions for it being a win are not fullfilled. Thus it is a draw. The ICCF grandmasters agreed on a draw. The calculation for the solution of chess can halt there too and the good assistants can adjudicate it a draw. The calculation could go on until a 3-fold repetition, but that would be pointless.

"the solution of checkers was not completed by assuming all positions where one side was two pieces up was decided" ++ Likewise for chess positions a pawn, piece, rook or queen up should not be assumed to be decided. The good assistants must first verify that all other things are equal. If not then more calculation is necessary as in the case of sacrifices that may or may not be correct. 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? is no such sacrifice. All other things are equal. It needs no grandmaster to see that. So 1 e4 e5 2 Na6? loses for white, no calculation to checkmate in 82 is needed.

Allis even solved Connect Four independently by only 7 rules: 7 heuristics. He noticed to connect 4 you first must connect 3: a big threat. He also noticed to connect 3 you first must create 3 connect 2. Then he also noticed the importance of the central column. Then he noticed that the 7*6 size of the board had tempo consequences favoring rows 1, 3, and 5. His whole strategy to solve Connect Four consists of 7 rules or heuristics.

Solving chess should be a combination of brute force and heuristics.
Pure brute force takes too long. It involves pointless calculations like 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6 to checkmate in all variations or like the opposite bishop ending continued until a 3-fold repetition.
Pure heuristics are not yet possible, though that is the way chess is taught to future grandmasters. Chess books are not filled with variations to memorise, but with heuristics to apply.

Oh look, it's the "Inconceivable!" guy from Princess Bride...

Just because you watched some NOVA special with Neil DeGrasse Tyson about the observed position of electrons and some fun stuff about quantum entanglement tossed in doesn't mean you know jack.  And here, you clearly don't.  Post some numbers, fly boy, or write us some code using an existing quantum computer's fully supported instruction set that would even evaluate who wins the simplest pawn race.

@5103
"quantum computing is just confined to solving a few problems that traditional computing can't get to"
++ If chess is ever strongly solved, then it will be by a quantum computer. Existing quantum computers can run any Python program. It is thinkable that a quantum computer generates an 8-men table base from the existing 7-men table base. Then it could go on.

...so it was you .  Figures.

Made it easier to find though...here's the thread:

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/quantum-computer-will-it-hurt-chess-theory?page=1

Don't need to post numbers little sweety, you clearly think that quantum computing is on linear with standard computing - which kind of indicates that you don't know about either standard computing and certainly not quantum computing.

When was the last time you went to a university? (Actually, may I ask, have you ever been to a university? Do you know what a university is?)

1. It's spelled "sweetie".

2. Saying "on linear" is a clumsy and incorrect usage.  Clearly, I *don't* think they are "on linear" though, because I just got done telling you that quantum computers are most useful for a specific subset of problems.  For the observant, this means that I do not consider the two technologies to be on the same scale, or to be "linear" on such a scale.

3. You're still talking, but have not produced a single premise or argument yet.  

Yeah you think the mathematics used by quantum computers is like junior school mathematics.....how sweet.

I spelled 'sweetie' as I did, because the 400 terms I used to describe someone who has not studied mathematics at school were rejected by the 'abuse system'  of the chess.com forum.

1. No, I don't think anything like that.  If anything, quantum computers would be more like linear algebra, given the matrices, so late high school or community college .  If I were going to ascribe a concept involving "junior" to anything, it would probably be you, not a quantum computer.

2. Your admission of not being able to express yourself without being rejected repeatedly by the forum filters does not seem that surprising.

Have you tried to grok the quantum computing thread I linked above yet?  Since you are seemingly so much better versed on quantum computers than I am, I was waiting eagerly to see your rebuttals to what I laid out about the QCL instruction set, the decoherence issues, etc.

Ok, at this point it should be pretty obvious he's a troll...

But I guess Btickler really enjoys arguing with this sort. Oh well.

Apparently, you don't know much about either linear algebra or quantum computing, or you would understand the references to matrices.  It's okay, you can keep pretending you know stuff, other people that don't know stuff will still believe you.

As for arguing with a troll, well, maybe the mods will let "idiot" go by dozens of times, but now that we have this latest post, let's see what happens...

I think you're well out of date. Cubits haven't been in use since biblical times.

The thing is Linear algebra would be more or less the opposite of quantum computing, butt licker.

Do you know what a quantum state is? DO you know what 6 million of them would be? I.e the diametric opposites of what a linear algebra state would be.....hence why the increase of MOSFETs in a die from millions to billions in meaningless when you move to quantum computing.

You really have taken the word 'linear' and taken it on board as a religion. You're not even within an order of magnitude of modern computing.

How many positions are there of electrons in a Hydrogen molecule? I H and one Deuterium? 2 Deuterium atoms? What would you say would be the energy needed to offset an electron from 2D compared to 2H, or 1H1D?

Never thought about it? [Removed by Staff, please note persistent abuse can lead to action being taken on your account, please follow our terms of service]

I know nothing of the veracity of the computing and scientific terms being discussed, but I am enjoying the dichotomy between the language of an aged scholar and the insults of a young child 😆

@5117
A 146 qubit quantum computer might strongly solve chess by retrograde analysis from 7 men to 8 men and beyond.
Good assistants with conventional computers can weakly solve chess in 5 years.