Chess.com and Elon Musk had a discussion about the solvability of chess on X. Chess.com bluntly responded to Elon’s statement that chess will be fully solved in the future. Chess.com argued that possible chess games outnumber atoms in the observable universe.

Musk believes this claim is incorrect. Elon states that the number of possible positions is less by 40 orders of magnitude.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk

World's richest entrepreneur

“[Chess.com: Skill issue]

Chess is hard for humans, but not for computers. One day, it will be fully solved like checkers.

Between now and then, or even after, have fun. People enjoy many games and sports where machines are vastly better.

[Chess.com: There are more possible chess games, by about 40 orders of magnitude, than atoms in the observable universe. To solve chess, you’d have to map them all. Good luck.]

Wrong, all legal chess positions about 40 orders of magnitude less than the estimated atoms in the universe. And ASI will figure out ways to solve and compress that are far beyond what we could possibly comprehend.

And here I am arguing with some random intern at a chess website…

And there are also more ways to piss in a pot than there are ‘atoms in the Universe’. That’s an idiotic metric.”

Chess is completely solved for any position with seven or fewer pieces on the board including both Kings. This was achieved using chess engines and Endgame tablebases in 2018.

Credit: Gage Skidmore