I like the irony in people mocking cheater_1 for having no common sense.
Possible positions after 40 moves
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I call for a recount. I will not be satisfied until all the atoms in the universe are individually counted, and all the possible chess moves are individually counted. Hanging chads don't count.
For Allis' game tree complexity to reach the # 10^123 he has to use an extensive form game that gives representation to the sequencing of players' possible moves, their choices at every decision point, and payoffs equal to the number of leaf nodes.
My point is it looks desperate and pathetic when compared to the calculation of 10^80 atoms. The chess estimate includes anything it possibly can to make its number bigger. The atom estimate doesn't even try to account for any other atoms other than hydrogen, or try any other attempts to increase it's number's size.
Fuck 10^123. Stop trying so hard to be comparable to 10^80, you're embarrassing youselves.
Sep 29, 2011
0
#65
Sirwantstobesmart wrote:
The atom estimate doesn't even try to account for any other atoms other than hydrogen,
Uh, 92% of the atoms in the universe (by molar count) are hydrogen. There's not a whole lot more to account for, certainly considerably less than 1 additional factor of 10.
Hey guys, why we dont ask to Chuck Norris???
When will chess.com or a Grand Master detail this important question and proclaim an official answer? 
Official though? On who's authority?
Jul 4, 2013
0
#70
Math. High-school level math is enough to calculate an answer within 5% of the actual value and if you spend about 30 min or so on it, you can get an exact or very close answer.
Just google it. Several folks have calculated the value. It greatly exceeds the number of atoms in the known universe.
Thanks to both of you (GeniusKJ and TheGrobe), point being, suspected no one will, just wanted to track current thought rather than almost 2-3years ago, just sort of like a point to ponder. I just wanted to see if people are still keeping this as a still current, relative question.....seems it is. I love the fact this game can encompass so many aspects to life! Oh I did before earlier posting "google" it. I guess that too is why Chess.com keeps this thread, thank you both again.
There are 169,518,829,100,544,000,000,000,000,000 ways to play the first 10 moves in chess
As far as atoms go, I can only tell you the calculations for he known and observible universe. I cant tell you about what we cant see....
cheater_1 wrote:
STUART..that statement is as FALSE as false can be. It's just an exaggeration to describe an impossibly large number. I'm a numbers/statistics type of guy and I laugh evertime I hear that one because I know.
A believable statement would be that there are more moves in a game of chess than there are grains of sand on all the beaches in the world.
To put it in perspective, there are about 10 to the 120 power of possible moves in a game of chess. Thats 120 Zeros. Just one drop of water contains 10 to the 11th power (11 zeros) of atoms in it. Think of all the drops of water on the earth and youll see that it would DWARF 10 to the 120. And that's just the EARTH. They said the universe.
Just as you CANNOT put 20 ounces of water in a 16 ounce glass, You cannot have have something larger than the universe contained in the universe. It's a physical impossibility.
Best post in this thread so far.
Like the size of the cosmos this will never be known, its quite satisfying to know this.
In this sense all people are exacly equal.
David
Wow. Seven years later, I must add my 2 cents. I believe that there actually ARE that many numbet of possibilities in a chess game. And that it dwarfs the number of electrons in the universe. And that's my 2 cents
cheater_1 wrote:
STUART..that statement is as FALSE as false can be. It's just an exaggeration to describe an impossibly large number. I'm a numbers/statistics type of guy and I laugh evertime I hear that one because I know.
A believable statement would be that there are more moves in a game of chess than there are grains of sand on all the beaches in the world.
To put it in perspective, there are about 10 to the 120 power of possible moves in a game of chess. Thats 120 Zeros. Just one drop of water contains 10 to the 11th power (11 zeros) of atoms in it. Think of all the drops of water on the earth and youll see that it would DWARF 10 to the 120. And that's just the EARTH. They said the universe.
Just as you CANNOT put 20 ounces of water in a 16 ounce glass, You cannot have have something larger than the universe contained in the universe. It's a physical impossibility.
"You cannot have something larger than the universe contained in the universe." We are not referring to something larger than the universe, but the number of possibilities in theory. For example, there are numbers in our numerical system which are infinitely greater than the number of atoms in the "observable" universe. There is no limit on their possible size.
It never ceases to amaze me how a topic gets railroaded. It's a lot like Chinese Whispers. Let's go right back to the first post from Stuart 777. He referred to a statement in a book which was: 'The total number of different games lasting 40 moves each is greater than the number of atoms in the universe'. And then the fun began. Everybody started tossing calculation after calculation around trying to work out the number of possible positions. But . . . the question didn't even refer to positions. Read again, the total number of games lasting 40 moves.
As for trying to work out the number of atoms in the universe, one might as well try to determine how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Not there is any such thing as angels though. Oops - looks like I've started a whole new argument there.
Dec 4, 2022
0
#80
cheater_1 wrote:
STUART..that statement is as FALSE as false can be. It's just an exaggeration to describe an impossibly large number. I'm a numbers/statistics type of guy and I laugh evertime I hear that one because I know.
A believable statement would be that there are more moves in a game of chess than there are grains of sand on all the beaches in the world.
To put it in perspective, there are about 10 to the 120 power of possible moves in a game of chess. Thats 120 Zeros. Just one drop of water contains 10 to the 11th power (11 zeros) of atoms in it. Think of all the drops of water on the earth and youll see that it would DWARF 10 to the 120. And that's just the EARTH. They said the universe.
Just as you CANNOT put 20 ounces of water in a 16 ounce glass, You cannot have have something larger than the universe contained in the universe. It's a physical impossibility.
Realize that the difference between 10^80 and 10^81 is ten fold. Difference between 10^80 (atoms in the universe) and 10^120 is 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000 fold.
So yea. 10^120 is immensely bigger than 10^80 let alone grains of sands on a beach or all beaches. (The 10^80 is estimated to be the number of atoms in the universe, which includes all beaches everywhere not just on this planet)
Yeah. Honest, yours wasn't posted yet when I started writing mine!
Considering all the approximations and rounding that get thrown around in such fanciful approaches, our results are remarkably similar. What's a couple orders of magnitude here and there when we're comparing against a claim of 10^120?
Yeah. But looking back on it, it seems like a bit of a waste to spend time trying to provide evidence to someone who rounds 10^11 off to 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 googol and then claims to be a statistician ...
As for the similarity, it probably comes because we used a fairly systematic (though, of course, superfluous - it's not like we're going to actually measure the number of atoms in the universe) approach. BTW, my "estimate" of 10^88 is actually not my estimate but cheater_1's estimate (I made calculations based on his numbers, taking a few more things for granted than you so I could save a bit of time): I personally would guess-timate more around 5x10^78.