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500 billion what?
Jul. 20th, 2007 12:46 pmThis New York Times article, discussing how checkers has been computationally solved, says that
Right, so, limit search, yadda yadda. But what I want to know is: with 32 squares, each of which can have a black piece, a red piece, a black king, a red king, or nothing, there ought to be 532 board possibilities (a huge chunk of them, of course, unreachable: kings on the board with the back row still unoccupied; more than 12 pieces per side; etc.), and that's 23,283,064,365,386,962,890,625. I think that's 23 billion billion--would it kill the times to just use the word "sextillions"?
Anyway, does anyone know where that "500 billion billion" number comes from?
Even with the advances in computers over the past two decades, it is still impossible, in practical terms, to compute moves for all 500 billion billion board positions.
Right, so, limit search, yadda yadda. But what I want to know is: with 32 squares, each of which can have a black piece, a red piece, a black king, a red king, or nothing, there ought to be 532 board possibilities (a huge chunk of them, of course, unreachable: kings on the board with the back row still unoccupied; more than 12 pieces per side; etc.), and that's 23,283,064,365,386,962,890,625. I think that's 23 billion billion--would it kill the times to just use the word "sextillions"?
Anyway, does anyone know where that "500 billion billion" number comes from?