Thursday, January 17, 2008

Best of the Blogosphere

Vatican Condemns Harry Potter: I won't spoil Jared's excellent quip. Go read it for yourself.

Order and chaos in chess:
Is chess ultimately governed by fixed rules and logic, or is it just a ‘random’ game? A comparison with science. ...

Sure, we have many practical rules of thumb (”put rooks on an open file, develop your pieces, etc.”) but because they don’t always work, they’re not real formulas, like E=mc^2 or V=(4/3)*pi*(r^3). Are such formulas in principe possible in chess, even though they may look entirely different? Is chess ultimately a game of order, or a game of chaos? What do you believe?
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3 comments:

  1. Anonymous1/18/08, 2:28 AM

    Chess I my opinion is a boring game. It is lauded as a game of strategy and intellectual combat. What a load of bull crap. It is a memory game, pure and simple. am...ok..when he does that I'm supposed to do......oh yeah that! Golly I'm a great chess player!

    I know that is a little off topic but the reputation of chess as a stategy game has always bugged me.
    As to whether or not mathematical equations can be applied to it, I'm not so sure. I am certain the game could be described by a mathematical formula. The number of states a chess board can attain is finite. With finite states and ridig change rules, it should be possible to describe all that mathematically (not that I would have a notion of how to go about that) I can't see and randomness in chess. Maybe I'm missing the point. It friday, I was up late, I don't like chess and I'm stuck at work....so sue me.

    Chess.....what a mega boring game.

    Have you got a great memory? Want to pretend you can think.....CHESS!!!! Ok i'll stop now.

    Sorry for trowing a wobbler on you blog larry.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Larry Hamelin1/18/08, 4:29 AM

    Chess is not really my game (I play Go and Poker), but it really does show the chaos lurking in purely deterministic, totally non-random systems.

    ReplyDelete
  3. James F. Elliott1/18/08, 9:26 AM

    I play Risk and Go Fish...

    ReplyDelete

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