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There is a simple board game that hides a number so large that it extends far beyond the scope of the universe
News18
Chess seems simple. A board of 64 squares, a fixed set of pieces, and rules that haven’t really changed in centuries. At first glance, it seems small. But it is not.
The number of possible chess matches is estimated at about 10¹²⁰. This is called the Shannon number, named after Claude Shannon, who came up with this idea in 1950 to show how complex the game really was.
To understand this number, it’s helpful to compare it to something larger.
Scientists estimate that there are between 10⁷⁸ and 10⁸² atoms in the observable universe.
Which means there are still many more possible chess games than there are atoms.
This seems almost impossible, but it’s about choices.
In most situations, a player has about 20 to 30 possible moves. Each step leads to more choices, and those lead to more. Within just a few turns, the number of possible games increases so dramatically that it becomes impossible to fully calculate them.
Even computers don’t try.
For many years, the problem with chess-playing machines was sheer complexity. Early computer programs were not able to defeat strong players and did not use the method of exhaustively searching all possible moves but instead used an intelligent approach to assess the situation. However, chess is not the most complex game on earth.
In fact, the ancient board game Go offers more possibilities than chess.
However, AI programs like AlphaGo have found a way around this problem by finding patterns rather than computing capabilities.
But for players, this is what makes chess so great.
Even after centuries, it has not been exhausted. New situations keep emerging. Games that start the same way can end very differently.
Two people can sit down with the same board and still play something completely new.
This is the strange thing about chess. It looks small. It feels simple. But once you start thinking about numbers, it opens up to something almost limitless.
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