Possible positions after 40 moves

Not only bigger, but given those estimates 10^41 times bigger.  ~10^41 universes of atoms.  That's 1 followed by 41 zeroes! 

I would agree if the number of possible positions after 40 moves was a physical thing like atoms of hydrogen and oxygen, but it is not -- it is an abstract concept.

Similarly, the number of possible arrangements of any number of the atoms in the universe up to and including all of them is an abstract concept that vastly outnumbers the total number of atoms in the universe -- by your reasoning, is this an invalid concept?

Sorry, Mowque, but your math is wrong. There are thirty-two pieces, to be placed one in each of 65 locations - and that's about 9.5 x 10^53 - far less than 3x10^79.

You're confusing "possible positions" with "sequences of moves" - two very different things.

*checks* yep, i'm wrong but the opening post said possiable games so i'm still right  by a happy chance

the statement is clearly false as the universe is infinate

the possible variations is not.

unless the world is flat and we will all sail off the edge

chess a sport????

good grief!

and cheater will you get rid of that ridiculous hat

(I can not take you seriously any more (I just thought you were ill)

rubycon, the universe is NOT infinte...

If the universe was infinite, then I hereby claim to be the center of the universe.  There is infinity to this side of me.  And infinity over there.  And there.  And if one agrees that 1=1, x=x, infinity=infinity, and cat=cat, I, or any other of you are the center of the universe.  Medievel christianity was correct! My logic, it is flawless.

There is more that one concept of infintiy so, infinity doesn't always equal infinity. For example thier are an infinite number of primes number and also an infinite number of nonprime integers, but the two concepts of infinity are not the same.

it's easy to put 20 ounces of water in a 16 ounce glass.

not really...

sure.  get a tall, thin 20 ounce glass, and freeze 20 ounces of water in it.  remove the 20 ounce ice cube, and place it in the 16 ounce glass.

If you're talking weight, and troy versus standard ounces you can get 21.333 ounces of water into a 16 ounce glass.

I can't believe nobody has suggested this.  Take your 16 ounce glass.  Pour 20 ounces of water into the glass.  Job done. 

1. The universe is not infinite. It would defy the laws of physics as we know them, AND would go against all the physical evidence we can see.

2. Cheater_1, your math fails, utterly. If i have one solar system that has, say 1x10^50 atoms in it, and i happen to have ten million solar systems, my number of atoms does not go up to 1x10^(50x10,000,000), but rather 10,000,000 x10^50. Which is simply 1x10^57. 10^150 is a HUGE number, and, if the universe is indeed finite, the number of possible chess moves far outstrips the number of atoms in the universe. The number of smart chess moves may not, but that wasn't the question. I mean, seriously, you expect us to believe you know better than all those scientists that have taken the time to calculate this out? (Why, I will never know. Too much time on their hands.) Puhlease.

somebody gets a trohpy. As for all this arguing, there doesn't seem to be a definitive answer... cheater you sound like you've really looked into this, but even if you say "that's just the atoms in ONE DROP OF WATER," numbers multiply very, VERY quickly. For example, half of the univers vs the whole universe- the whole universe is IMMENSELY larger than half of the universe.. but mathematically it is only seperated by a simple multiple of 2, That's it! Or even if you finally came up with a number equal to 1/10 of the universe, you only need to multiply that 3 and some more times! We're talking about shit to the 120th power here. To the 120th power!

I could be easilly wrong but I'd actually like to know the answer here.

2 constant errors:

• People acting like scientists that say "Well, according to my precise calculations da da da da the possibly positions is roughly 10^120.  These people copied this number from a website, padded their post so they could pretend to be awesomely smart, but 10^120 is the possible numbers of GAMES in chess.  The possible number of positions is roughly 10^70 lower.  Ambysmal you plagerizers.
• The universe may be infinite.  The KNOWN universe is not.
• Cheater 1's logic is so mind numbingly wrong but heres a stab at an example.  Think of a deck of cards.  There are 52 cards in a deck, but when you shuffle them, they can come out in so many differant ways (52! ways, or 52*51*50*49...).  So yes, the amount of possibilities can outnumber the amount of physical objects

P.S. Sixguns you are a little late.  I've already posted the origional source far before you posted a second-hand one from your book.

I believe I can give a sourced answer to this.

On page 234 of my book titled, -The Even More Complete Chess Addict by Mike FOX and Richard James the correct number of legal positions on a chess board is given as 10x2 to 43rd power.

The number of different chess games of 40 moves or less has been estimated at 25x 10 to the 115th power.

This number is considerably larger than the estimated number of electrons in the universe 10 to 79th power..

Also after nine moves number of possible positions is over 9 million.

If you wanted to reach every position after 4 moves taking one minute for each one it would take you a matter of 600,000 years!

Here is that number

250,00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

00000000000.....

Source-The Even More Complete Chess Addict authors

Mike Fox and Richard James..--Sixguns

By the way book states estimated number

of "electrons" in the universe  not ATOMS..

Was  even more astounding numbers on that page involving chess. Great book by the way.-SIX

I am amazed at the number of posters who go off-topic by talking about the number of positions, when the original question was the number of different games lasting 40 moves.

40 moves includes 40 moves by White and 40 moves by Black. Conservatively estimating an average of a dozen moves at each turn, that would give 12^80 different games, or 2.16 x 10^86, which is more than either estimate of the number of atoms in the universe.