Chess will never be solved, here's why

They do indeed - if any post is deleted then renumbering occurs on all subsequent posts.  
But this 'five' number is interesting to me. 
Deserves more attention in this context.

#2159

"There is no such thing as "the position as it is, with ply count 0"
++ Please present the position right after the last capture or pawn move, i.e. when the count to 50 starts. There is no point in discussing a position that has been botched by near 50 bad moves.

"Anna Ushenina (2491) vs. Olga Girya (2463)"
++ It is an embarrasment she could not checkmate KBN vs. K. The position was an elementary win, one of the 5 basic checkmates. It has no relevance to solving chess.

"You won't find any recorded grandmaster or ICCF games played under the rules of the game you are now proposing to solve and of course neither will I."
++ I still challenge you to show me one grandmaster game or ICCF game under any rules of the game (competition rules, or ICCF rules) where the 50 moves rule was invoked before the 7-men table base was hit. I bet there is none, but I cannot prove the non existence of such a game. 

"your system of takebacks, to be a proof, needs to examine all alternative moves from positions proven to be drawn (not just the four SF14 recommended moves, none of which may be perfect - as in the example under discussion)."
++ I presented an argument why the 4 top white moves suffice. If you disagree, then please present a counterexample where the table bases correct move is not within the top 4 moves: a counterexample starting right after a pawn move or a capture, not after the position has been messed up by a series of near 50 bad moves without pawn move or capture.

"From positions that are really drawn, this will result in positions with eeenormous ply counts under the game you now (as opposed to when the thread started) propose to solve."
++ I dispute that. In practice chess games end or reach a table base in under 100 moves.  Present me one grandmaster or ICCF game (under competition rules or ICCF rules) where the 50 moves rule was involved before the 7 men table base was hit. I cannot prove the non-existence of such a game. I bet you cannot find one. If the 50 moves rule is not involved before the 7-men table base is hit, then your competition rules (with 50-moves rule and 3-fold repetition rule) are identical to ICCF rules (50-moves rule only before the table base is hit and 3-fold repetition rule).

3-fold repetition or 2-fold repetition or 5-fold repetition is the same in principle. It is just a few repetitions added. If the optimal  move is to repeat a position twice, then the optimal move is also to repeat 3 times, and also to repeat 5 times. 

#2152
"As a mathematician (well, long ago my two degrees were in maths) I observe that your posts are characterised by taking an unmathematical approach, more akin to someone playing chess than someone proving a mathematical result."

++ Well then maybe you can explain to the non-mathematicians the solution to the problem:
given data points (0, 1), (1, 0.118), (60, 0.021), (oo, 0)
find the data point (60*3600, ?)
The non-mathematicians seem unable to understand my explanations.

@Elroch already told you what he thinks about your reasoning on the matter. Your conceit in believing that none before you, in history, have faced the problem of how many events of a kind occur in a fixed interval of time, or did discover any better formula than yours, speaks volumes about your background in mathematics. And your hubris in inferring people's background from the fact that they consider crap your formulas and calculations is astonishing.

I wonder if @tygxc is going to let anybody in the forum tell him anything at all.
Has there even been one instance of that ?  
Nobody has to take that seriously though.
I've seen a certain situation on the site though -
where various people only allow printed matter on another website to tell them something.
Since its printed text that's being read where the author or person who has typed the text - doesn't know who's reading it ...
then the person who reads it and then regurgitates it here because he's being told what he wants to hear ....
doesn't have to feel that somebody told him something !    
He or she 'selects' rather than being told.  

There are non-mathematicians and non-mathematicians.

You are obviously one of the latter.

Given the unproven assumption that chess is a draw you arrive at the question

given data points (0, 1), (1, 2n+1 x  0.118), (60,2n+1 x  0.021), (∞, 0)
find the data point (60*3600, ?)

The last of the data points being obviously quite meaningless and the first presumably based on the further unproven assumption that all moves from any position are errors.

You then, based on the further unproven assumption that 2n+1=1 for any value of n, decide it actually means 

given data points (0, 1), (1, 0.118), (60, 0.021), (∞, 0)
find the data point (60*3600, ?)

Of course, since the last data point is still quite meaningless, the question is still quite meaningless. 

If you remove the last data point, there are rather a lot of answers you could get as @llama51's video points out here.

Wolfram gives you a nice little widget for finding the best fit on certain assumptions.

So you can choose an unproven assumption and decide which you like best.

Linear:

Quadratic:

Exponential:

Trignometric.

I would go for exponential if I were you. It's practically zero at zero think time, so you could probably have it all solved on your desktop by next week. Re-lease the supercomputers and make a tidy little profit.

If you still can't understand it all, don't get too downhearted. You could probably do well as a stand up comic. It doesn't need any maths at all.

Regarding mathematical induction apparently the famous French mathematician Pascal was a pioneer of it in the 1600's.
Then there was the Swiss.   Bernoulli a bit after Pascal.
Then there was Boole - much later.  After whom 'Boolean' is named.

Here's the link to the Wiki article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_induction
there are many web articles about mathematical induction.
But its not like getting 'Made' in the Mafia !
Induction in math has strict mathematical rules.

Point:  @tygxc could look up mathematical induction himself -
and try and understand it properly - instead of continuing with invalid 'extrapolations'.
He's not going to let anybody here tell him ... but if its a website he might catch on.  

#2166
"There are non-mathematicians and non-mathematicians.
You are obviously one of the latter."
I am pretty sure I know more about mathematics than any of you, including the man with the 2 degrees.
Mathematics has since ancient times been applied to solve all kinds of problems, not to demonstrate that nothing can be concluded.
Induction and deduction are the two main pathways of any science.

Do you really think any of your 4 curves represents the fraction of decisive games versus time?

Coming back to deriving the error rate E from the fraction of decisive games D, it is obvious that E =~D provided D is small enough.

Proof:
At 1 min / move the paper gives D = 0.021.
Under the generally accepted hypothesis that chess is a draw a decisive game contains an odd number of errors.
Thus
D = E + E^3 + E^5 + E^7 + ... = E / (1 - E^2)
Thus
E^2 - 1 + E/D = 0
Thus
E = sqrt ((1 / 2D)^2 + 1) - 1 / 2D
Keying in
D = 0.021
yields
E = 0.020990747
Thus E =~D
quod erat demonstrandum

We just got this:
"I am pretty sure I know more about mathematics than any of you, including the man with the 2 degrees."
Lol !   
Does that define that issue - and 'translate' about 200 posts by a particular member here (not I)?
Nothing personal - but is that the 'Rome' of all those posts ?
(saying:  'all roads lead to Rome'.   And Rome of course - had an Emperor.)
If that remark (by another member) that I have quoted in italics - was posted to 'get attention' - it should !    It should get attention.  Much.

another saying:  "the truth will out."
With 'out' acting as a verb there.
In reality - the truth doesn't always emerge - but it often does !
Can take a while though.

Repeat:  Somebody (not I) - just posted in a very recent post:
"I am pretty sure I know more about mathematics than any of you, including the man with the 2 degrees."

Here's where I stand. A chess engine may be able to solve chess in the far distant future, but why does it matter? At this point, we have engines capable of playing near-perfect games, millions of times better than any human could dream of achieving. I don't see many major improvements that could be made at this point. As far as I'm concerned, chess may not be absolutely solved, but it is effectively solved.

Good post.
Why does it matter ?
I've got a response ! In the form of a suggestion.
It Doesn't !  It Doesn't Matter.  
Its being talked about though.

A lot of things are. 
In these public forums - subjects that truly 'matter' and in a very compelling way - well many of those subjects aren't allowed by the management in public forums here - and rightly so.
Its a chess site ? 
Yes.  But chess isn't just a game - it has a 'community aspect'. 
Its a social activity among many other things.

What you are describing is empirical modelling. You have a tiny amount of empirical data with a complex relationship beyond precise analysis - you can think of it as a black box - and  you would like to predict more similar data.  The process and the reasoning involved are scientific in nature rather than mathematical. Mathematics is about deductive reasoning. 

Putting aside the issue that the empirical data may be irrelevant to the topic of this forum, the scientific method would indicate you need to come up with a parcimonious model, test that model with a sufficient amount of data, and then you would be in a position to make predictions that are unlikely to have huge errors.

Unfortunately, you seem to have skipped everything that gives the scientific method reliability. Have you forgotten what the scientific method is, or did you not realise you were making a sort of attempt to use it?

Quote:
"Unfortunately, you seem to have skipped everything that gives the scientific method reliability. Have you forgotten everything about science? "
@Elroch - didn't you see a few posts ago ...
Somebody (not I) said he is 'pretty sure' that he 'knows more'.
Didn't that post and that remark already pre-answer your question ?
And pre-answer many other questions ?

whats this thread.. 2150 message. are you unemployed or something? mathematical proofs, code samples.. geez. as if dudes are saving the world here..

People read novels too.  And watch movies.
And play chess.   Are they all 'unemployed' ?

so reading a novel and writing & reading forum posts about something are the same. good. people can talk about chess being solvable or unsolvable but this level.. is beyong the necessity. if you know too much this topic why dont you write a program, make a product instead of this. besides no one will read all of this.. thousands of pages will be lost here even if they had useful information. write a book, form a product.. so people can use. whats this?

'what's this?' - is you here.
You seem to be rejecting the forum topic - but here you are.  Anyway.
Perhaps there'll now be many posts about 'what's this?' now.  
And some pingpong.  Your serve.  But the 'ball' might not be returned.

I'm here because i saw the post count. You keep dodging the point. this is pointless.

#2175

"What you are describing is empirical modelling." ++ Yes, that is right
"You have a tiny amount of empirical data with a complex relationship beyond precise analysis - you can think of it as a black box - and  you would like to predict more similar data.  The process and the reasoning involved are scientific in nature rather than mathematical."
++ Yes, that is right, but to do that I use some simple high school mathematics that some seem unable or unwilling to understand
"Mathematics is about deductive reasoning"
++ Here we can argue about, but that is semantics. There are several branches of mathematics that are more inductive than deductive, e.g. statistics, curve fitting, game theory...
What Tromp did for example was mostly inductive: he counted the number of possible chess positions, then he randomly sampled 10,000 of them, he found 538 of these to be legal and from that he induced that there are 10^44 legal chess positions.

"Putting aside the issue that the empirical data may be irrelevant to the topic of this forum, the scientific method would indicate you need to come up with a parcimonious model, test that model with a sufficient amount of data, and then you would be in a position to make predictions that are unlikely to have huge errors."
++ There is a difference between 2 very different things:
1) solving chess, and
2) assessing the feasibility of solving chess.
It is pointless to attempt 1) before 2): nobody wants to embark on a million years of calculation: that is not feasible. 2) does not need to be very precise: whether it is 5 years, or 3, or 7 makes no practical difference.

"Unfortunately, you seem to have skipped everything that gives the scientific method reliability. Have you forgotten what the scientific method is, or did you not realise you were making a sort of attempt to use it?"
++ There are different scientific methods, boiling down to deduction (as used mostly but not exclusively in pure mathematics) and to induction (as often used in physics, but also in statistics etc.) Yes, I try to make use of the few data scraped from various sources coupled with inductive and deductive reasoning to answer 2 questions:
1) Was GM Sveshnikov right when he predicted chess can be weakly solved in 5 years, and
2) How could that be done?