A story about Python... sort of

[John J. Lee]

"Russell Reagan" <rreagan at attbi.com> writes:

> "John J Lee" <jjl at pobox.com> wrote:
> 
> >  A Google result (appropriately enough, given the origin of
> > the name Google) suggested 10**120
> 
> 10**120 is the estimate of "paths", or "games", not "positions". The
> estimate of unique positions is 10**40, give or take. I don't recall whether
[...]

Yeah.  The previous couple of lines you snipped from my post:

| attempting to work out the number of chess games is that my undergrad
                             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

| maths books are currently propping up the monitor I'm using to write this
| <0.5 wink>.  A Google result (appropriately enough, given the origin of
| the name Google) suggested 10**120, and I seem to have a number in my head


John