Richard Brown wrote:
Furthermore, the number of go positions one would have to store is larger than the (finite) number of atomic particles in the universe, so even if there were an _infinite_ amount of time (which there isn't, because the universe does have an age) there isn't enough storage space to keep track of the results.
This is not true. We can reasonably expect perfect playing strategies that finish the game within a thousand ply. A search of the gametree to a depth of 1000 takes no more than 1000*1000 bytes.
Such problems -- those that require a longer time than the age of the universe, or that require more storage than the number of atomic particles in the universe are called "inherently intractable". And that's why _not_even_ brute-force will work. It is _NOT_ possible. The assertion that it is "easy to write a perfect go program given no time constraints" is simply not true. Not even theoretically.
It's easy to write such a program, even under the time constraint of one week:-) Running the program is also easy in theory; it will terminate within 1000^1000 "steps". This is only a *practical* impossibility in our shortlived universe. regards, -John _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list computer-go@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/