Do you think chess and mathematics are related?

Yeah, I agree that's a hazard with those things.  In fact, it would be good if they threw in a few where the obviously implied idea doesn't work (just to sort of keep you honest).

On the other hand, I can remember a situation on TT where a queen was hanging.  And I said, "Well, the solution can't possibly really be RxQ, so I'll look around for a while to find something better."  I finally shrugged and--seeing nothing else--played RxQ.  And that--rather absurdly--turned out to be the solution.

lol, that scenario is basically 20% of TT . While of course such a radical thing will succeed in keeping you honest, will it actually improve your OTB? Not unless you need more "hanging queen" patterns. It's just not realistic -- if you attacked a queen, it didn't move, and mate wasn't threatened, you wouldn't suddenly forget or not want to execute your threat.

There are positions where a quiet move, increasing the pressure is better than a direct sac; those are good, because they're much more realistic.

There are obviously some things in chess that are related to math, even on a basic level, like whether or not the king can catch that passed pawn.  I think there are also things that strongly suggest that chess involves much more than math, such as some of these mysterious moves GM makes that people like me, well, most players, don't understand that gives them some sort of a long term positional advantage.

It's like saying that music is mathematical.  I mean, sure there are those relationships behind the scenes, but I doubt if too many people listening to music are saying:  "Ah wonderful!  That octave is at exactly twice the frequency of the tonic."

How do you feel about Santa?

Oh, I know this one!  cabadenwurt is Santa.

I don't remember asking who Santa is, but give me cabadenwurt's address so I can start sending letter to him.

http://www.chess.com/members/view/cabadenwurt

Santa Fe is one of the oldest cities in North America.

And my Aunt Fay is one of its oldest ladies.

Um... uh...  .... . . ... .

I fail to see the connection of music and math in the sense of composition, listening, and/or performing and feel more that math is explaining music whereas some seem to say music is aural mathematics.  So I'm not arguing that you're wrong.  The problem is this whole notion that the octave is exactly twice the frequence of the tonic is really bothering me.  In the key of A, every A is the tonic, and therfore the A above the lower A is still the tonic.  So the octave being twice the frequence of the tonic leads to some huge confusion since higher pitch in the octave you're speaking of is the tonic, making this some sort of infinite mess where we keep stacking octaves.  Now, the pitch being doubled that of the fundamental is spot on.

No doubt your pedantry really helped move that one along.  Yes, I am now an old guy and I find that my grasp of terminology is not quite what it used to be...but thanks for belaboring your really rather trivial point over an entire paragraph.  Once again you've done a truly splendid job of hiding your snobbery!

plenty of tonic but no gin, didn't work for me either, Andy

Maybe a different tonic system?

If you ask Railich or any other computer programmer of chess, they will undoubtedly say that chess is can be described entirely in mathematical terms. They say this because they have succeeded in doing so.

 The game is obviously immensely complex and it unlikely ever to be solved completely. But the discussion of whether chess and mathematics are related has been definitively concluded.

They are first cousins.

Aren't they recorded responses?  Computers dont think for themselves.

I thought the implied question was: are playing chess and doing math related?

Flying an airplane has a lot to do with physics, and can be simulated by a computer for design and training pilots, but flying a plane doesn't improve your knowledge or ability in physics or math.

So yes, most positions can be played well by a computer (just like flying a plane), but this fact isn't relevant to people's day to day experience with the game.

Cavalier: If I were to have kids, I wouldn't imply Santa Claus exists, no.

Wafflemaster: Agreed. I think mathematics is more like a tool we use. We use it to represent things, just like language. We made a system to describe quantities and relationships (equations) to better understand the world around us. Ultimately, though, such conceptual systems were created by us. Aliens in a far away galaxy might have found a completely different way to represent the world, perhaps one completely unintelligible to us.

Note the distinction here: We don't create the world around us, but we do create arbitrary ways of describing the world around us, i.e., math.

And yes, cavalier, it seems you are intentionally missing the point of Andy's post.