Tag: universe

WTF Fun Fact 13688 – Chess’ Infinite Possibilities

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Diving into the world of chess, we hit upon a fact that’s as mind-boggling as it is true: there are infinite possibilities in chess games. In fact, more than there are atoms in the observable universe.

Let’s break this down into manageable pieces.

Chess: A Game of Infinite Possibilities

Chess, with its 64 squares and 32 pieces, might seem finite at first glance. However, the potential moves and strategies unfold into a vast, almost limitless landscape. The number of possible game variations exceeds the number of atoms in the observable universe, which is about 10^80. In contrast, the number of possible chess games is estimated to be around 10^120. This staggering difference showcases chess’s complexity and depth.

Calculating the Infinite

The calculation of chess’s possible iterations involves a dizzying array of potential moves each piece can make, compounded with each turn. From the initial move of a pawn or knight to the intricate dances of queens and rooks in the endgame, every decision branches into a new set of possibilities, expanding the game’s potential universe exponentially.

The Impact on Strategy

What does this mean for players? It ensures that no two chess games are ever the same. Players must constantly adapt, think ahead, and strategize in novel ways. This infinite complexity makes chess a perennial challenge, one that can never be fully mastered, always offering new puzzles to solve and strategies to explore.

Beyond Human Comprehension

The vast number of iterations in chess goes beyond what the human mind can fully comprehend or explore. It’s a humbling reminder of the game’s depth and the limits of human cognition. Even with the advent of powerful chess computers and algorithms, we’re still uncovering the mysteries and beauties of this ancient game.

Infinite Possibilities on a Chessboard

This fact about chess serves as a metaphor for the infinite possibilities within seemingly finite boundaries. It reminds us that within the constraints of a chessboard lies a universe of potential, echoing the endless capacity for innovation and creativity in the human spirit.

In essence, the idea that chess offers more game possibilities than there are atoms in the universe is a testament to the game’s enduring intrigue and complexity. It’s a fascinating aspect that draws players in, offering a lifetime of discovery and challenge on just 64 squares.

— WTF fun facts

Source: “Are there really more possible Chess games than atoms in the Universe?” — Medium

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February 20, 2024
Astronomers find what may be the universe’s brightest object with a black hole devouring a sun a day

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Astronomers have discovered what may be the brightest object in the universe, a quasar with a black hole at its heart growing so fast that it swallows the equivalent of a sun a day.The record-breaking quasar shines 500 trillion times brighter than our sun. The black hole powering this distant quasar is more than 17 billion times more immense than our sun, an Australian-led team reported Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy. While the quasar resembles a mere dot in images, scientists envision a ferocious place.The rotating disk around the quasar’s black hole — the luminous swirling gas and other matter from gobbled-up stars — is like a cosmic hurricane.”This quasar is the most violent place that we know in the universe,” lead author Christian Wolf of Australian National University said in an email.The European Southern Observatory spotted the object, J0529-4351, during a 1980 sky survey, but it was thought to be a star. It was not identified as a quasar — the extremely active and luminous core of a galaxy — until last year. Observations by telescopes in Australia and Chile’s Atacama Desert clinched it.”The exciting thing about this quasar is that it was hiding in plain sight and was misclassified as a star previously,” Yale University’s Priyamvada Natarajan, who was not involved in the study, said in an email. These later observations and computer modeling have determined that the quasar is gobbling up the equivalent of 370 suns a year — roughly one a day. Further analysis shows the mass of the black hole to be 17 to 19 billion times that of our sun, according to the team. More observations are needed to understand its growth rate.The quasar is 12 billion light-years away and has been around since the early days of the universe. A light-year is 5.8 trillion miles. ___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —

Astronomers have discovered what may be the brightest object in the universe, a quasar with a black hole at its heart growing so fast that it swallows the equivalent of a sun a day.

The record-breaking quasar shines 500 trillion times brighter than our sun. The black hole powering this distant quasar is more than 17 billion times more immense than our sun, an Australian-led team reported Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy.

While the quasar resembles a mere dot in images, scientists envision a ferocious place.

The rotating disk around the quasar’s black hole — the luminous swirling gas and other matter from gobbled-up stars — is like a cosmic hurricane.

“This quasar is the most violent place that we know in the universe,” lead author Christian Wolf of Australian National University said in an email.

The European Southern Observatory spotted the object, J0529-4351, during a 1980 sky survey, but it was thought to be a star. It was not identified as a quasar — the extremely active and luminous core of a galaxy — until last year. Observations by telescopes in Australia and Chile’s Atacama Desert clinched it.

“The exciting thing about this quasar is that it was hiding in plain sight and was misclassified as a star previously,” Yale University’s Priyamvada Natarajan, who was not involved in the study, said in an email.

These later observations and computer modeling have determined that the quasar is gobbling up the equivalent of 370 suns a year — roughly one a day. Further analysis shows the mass of the black hole to be 17 to 19 billion times that of our sun, according to the team. More observations are needed to understand its growth rate.

The quasar is 12 billion light-years away and has been around since the early days of the universe. A light-year is 5.8 trillion miles.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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February 19, 2024
The final scene in the DCEU dares you to think of it as a metaphor for the whole franchise

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Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom flows into theaters this weekend with the dubious honor of being the final film in the DC Extended Universe. And that means its final scene — its credits scene — is the final shot of Warner Bros. great attempt to equal the Marvel Cinematic Universe with its own pet superhero setting.

But it also means that the typical use of a superhero movie credits scene doesn’t apply here. There aren’t any future franchise events for Lost Kingdom to point to. What’s a blockbuster to do?

If you’ve seen Lost Kingdom, you know, and if you haven’t, maybe you’re just here to rubberneck. But here’s what it did.

[Ed. Note: This piece contains spoilers for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.]

Image: Warner Bros. Pictures/DC Comics

Lost Kingdom’s credits scene isn’t about anything weighty, it’s just a call back to a gross-out gag from earlier in the film. Orm (Patrick Wilson), the redeemed bad guy from the first Aquaman, is enjoying his first surface-world hamburger when he spies a cockroach scurrying across the dock-side picnic table.

Earlier in the movie, his brother Aquaman (Jason Momoa) tricked him into thinking that live cockroaches are an every day surface-world snack. So Orm grabs the roach, slaps it between the layers of his sandwich, and takes a big, happy bite. Good night, sweet DCEU, may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

But here I must implore my fellow human beings: We absolutely musn’t make this a metaphor. No matter how resonant, absurd, or funny the credits scene on Lost Kingdom, we must resist.

Orm’s burger is, inevitably, a roachy Rorschach test. The insect can be whatever you didn’t like about the DCEU, and Orm happily eating it is the fans you don’t like lapping it up. Or, Orm is the executives whose meddling ruined the franchise happily choosing their comeuppance (the roach), which is the collapse of the whole thing (an honestly very appetizing burger). Or maybe, the burger is the Snyder Cut, somehow, and Orm is Joss Whedon? I’m sure somebody could flesh out that video essay.

But we have to draw a line in the sand, like Topo the octopus scurrying away from the blood-drinking Deserters and back to the safety of deep water. We have to restrain ourselves, like Orm touching the Black Trident. We have to escape, like the fish in the sea, able to say that in the end, at the end of an era, we didn’t take the bait.

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Susana Polo

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December 21, 2023
The Remedy Connected Universe is my MCU

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It’s been two weeks since Alan Wake 2, the sequel to Remedy Entertainment’s 2010 cult action-horror game, was released, and I can’t stop thinking about it. Between the introduction of protagonist and FBI profiler Saga Anderson and the mystery-board storytelling mechanics of the game’s Mind Place system (not to mention a forthcoming new game plus feature and DLC slated for next year), I’m obsessed with Remedy Entertainment’s latest game — much in the same way I was with its last new release, 2019’s Control.

That obsession has only grown after puzzling over how the events of Alan Wake 2 might relate to the upcoming Control 2. I’ve even started a new playthrough of the original Control in my search for clues I might have overlooked. The Remedy Connected Universe has me excited for the possibility of intertextual storytelling in video games at a time where I otherwise feel fatigue over multi-franchise crossovers. Whether it’s the MCU, DCU, or Star Wars, I’m just over how labyrinthine most of these fictional interconnected universes have become. I don’t feel that way about the Remedy Connected Universe, though.

Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing

I think I know why: An interconnected universe on this scale has never really been attempted before in video games. What’s more, Remedy’s games have so far been self-contained enough to be enjoyable as their own experiences. Finally, by virtue of being video games, which are extremely time-intensive and tricky to make, there’s not a new one to play every few months.

Shared-world storytelling, while compelling when done right, is approaching something of a nadir in popular culture. A recent report by Variety about the internal turmoil of Marvel Studios in 2023 paints a picture of a studio that, through a combination of several box-office disappointments and an oversaturation of streaming TV releases, has come to a crossroads in its otherwise unimpeded path of commercial success. There are, as of this writing, 33 films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and nine streaming series recognized as canon.

Image: Remedy Entertainment/505 Games via Polygon

That’s a lot of “homework” for anyone who wants to stay up to date with the latest Marvel developments. Remedy Entertainment’s shared universe doesn’t suffer from this same level of fatigue-inducing scale — as of this moment, there are only three games (Alan Wake, Control, and Alan Wake 2) to play in order to be caught up with what’s going on (leaving aside the many subtle connections to and Easter eggs from Max Payne, Max Payne 2, and Quantum Break). And for those that really couldn’t give a toss about the interconnected plot threads between Control’s corner of the Remedy Connected Universe and Alan Wake’s, the two series are still distinct enough that you could easily enjoy one or the other on its own merit.

For instance: Did you know that Freya Anderson, the mother of Alan Wake 2 protagonist Saga Anderson and daughter of Old Gods of Asgard member Tor Anderson, was first name-dropped in a collectible FBC document in the AWE DLC for Control, three years before the release of Alan Wake 2? Or that Sheriff Tim Breaker and Jesse Faden, who are played by Shawn Ashmore and Courtney Hope, are implied to be alternate-reality versions of Jack Joyce and Beth Wilder, the protagonists of 2016’s Quantum Break, who are also played by Ashmore and Hope? Probably not. Could this be important to the future of the story of either Control or Alan Wake? Sure, maybe — but only for those who care. The point is to reward those players who like to dive a little deeper in order to draw out those lesser-known connections. Best of all, these kinds of Easter eggs don’t come at the expense of what’s unique or enjoyable about either Control or Alan Wake.

Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing

Earlier this year, Remedy Entertainment announced its transition to a multi-project studio, with over five games currently in production, including a sequel to Control, a four-player player-versus-environment co-op game set in the world of Control, and a combined remake of Max Payne and Max Payne 2, each roughly scheduled to come out with a year between one another. Even if each of these releases were to be a touchstone in the Remedy Connected Universe going forward, audiences would only need to play one game a year, at most, in order to keep up with the evolving narrative of either Control or Alan Wake.

I totally get the trepidation at the prospect of following yet another shared-universe narrative, especially when there’s no real stated end goal at this early point in the Remedy Connected Universe. Will Saga Anderson cross paths with Jesse Faden at some point in the future? Maybe! Will Quantum Break at some point be retroactively acknowledged as a canon part of this shared fictional universe? Who knows? For now, I’m just along for the ride — and as long as Remedy continues to iterate on its past success, and continues to develop idiosyncratic games with interesting characters and compelling storylines, I’m more than happy to follow the developer down whichever narrative rabbit hole it goes down next.

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Toussaint Egan

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November 15, 2023
Unbelievable facts

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December 23, 2022
The Mar-a-Lago ‘Raid’ Put Ron DeSantis in a Box

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That the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Florida home has become a rallying point for Republicans—ever eager to demonstrate fealty to the former president and rage at government overreach—is not exactly a shock. What is noteworthy is how the news might shift political considerations in MAGA world.

In another universe, last week’s FBI search could have provided a perfect opportunity for a wannabe party leader like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to set himself apart. A reckless has-been running off with nuclear secrets? Not my president! But in this universe—and given this particular cult of personality—DeSantis has parked his wagon next to all the others encircling Trump.

“These agencies have now been weaponized to be used against people that the government doesn’t like,” DeSantis told a crowd on Sunday at an Arizona political rally alongside the GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and the Senate candidate Blake Masters. If the Florida governor had been gearing up to launch his own presidential bid, the FBI search—and what could come after—might be forcing him to rethink his plans. “Now that Trump is beleaguered and in legal trouble and the current narrative is Rally to the king!, he will rally to the king,” Mac Stipanovich, a Florida Republican strategist, told me.

DeSantis has Trump to thank for his political success. The president’s endorsement—and multiple campaign appearances—helped him when he was the underdog candidate in his 2018 Republican primary, and ultimately led to his slim victory in the general election. In the three years since DeSantis got the keys to the governor’s mansion, he has worked diligently to position himself as the natural inheritor of Trumpism. He’s waded dutifully into the culture wars, opposing lockdown orders, blasting critical race theory and banning lessons on sexuality in school. He’s even mastered Trump’s hand gestures.

David Frum: The Republicans have a Trump problem. Again.

If the former president should decide not to run again in 2024, DeSantis has seemed ready and willing to accept the baton. In polls, Republican voters have consistently chosen him as their second-favorite choice for president.

Some strategists told me that DeSantis might even try to challenge Trump in a primary by arguing—carefully, respectfully—that the MAGA movement does not belong to just one man. “Before the Mar-a-Lago raid, I was of the mind that it would be a crowded primary” in 2024, David Jolly, a former GOP representative from Florida, told me. “DeSantis has been so strong that he could say, ‘Enough voters are asking me to get in the race; I’m going to stand. But if Trump wins, I’ll support him.’”

The FBI search, though, might have sabotaged DeSantis’s diligent plans. The news was read by MAGA world as the opening salvo of a war on Trump, and every Republican with a political survival instinct has proclaimed righteous anger on his behalf. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted an upside-down American flag in apparent support of Trump; “We are seeing the justice system being used as a hammer to batter political opponents,” the Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano told Newsmax. Even former Vice President Mike Pence came to Trump’s defense, despite recent reporting that Trump had expressed support for Pence’s hanging: “I share the deep concern of millions of Americans over the unprecedented search of the personal residence of President Trump,” Pence tweeted.

DeSantis, too, was not about to bite the hand that feeds. He issued an angry tweet condemning the Biden “Regime” for its overreach. As DeSantis continues to campaign for MAGA-type candidates ahead of the midterms, including Mastriano in Pennsylvania and the Senate candidate J. D. Vance of Ohio, you can bet that he’ll keep talking about “the raid,” pointing to it as evidence of a leftist takeover of American government. This may be pure pandering. “There is no [advantage] in being seen to betray Donald Trump in his hour of travail,” Stipanovich said. Doing so risks appearing like a traitor to the MAGA cause and losing the base’s admiration. The most that DeSantis or any other presidential hopeful can do is be a loyalist and hope that, eventually, Trump falls or makes room for them to run.

Conor Friedersdorf: Why Never Trumpers should bet on Ron DeSantis now

Still, even in his condemnation of the search, DeSantis appears to be walking a careful line. During his speech in Arizona, he didn’t actually mention Trump by name. Instead, he accused the FBI of “targeting people who go against the regime.” The remarks seemed intended to demonstrate loyalty to the base rather than to Trump himself. Maybe DeSantis assumed that the audience wouldn’t notice? Or maybe he’s making a judgment that MAGA world wants Trump’s rhetoric but no longer requires Trump the man to be its mouthpiece.

DeSantis could be leaving himself a small opening: If the various investigations into Trump never amount to anything, DeSantis might still have room to challenge the former president. But if Trump is actually indicted for a crime related to the Capitol attack on January 6, or to whatever classified documents he’s allegedly taken from the White House, last week’s rally-round-the-king moment offered a glimpse of what we can expect. Every Republican politician, including any potential challengers, would be forced to choose between defending Trump and siding with Joe Biden’s corrupt, leftist “deep state.” “The prosecution of Donald Trump would be the most catalyzing moment available to the former president,” Jolly said. “That’s a harder case for DeSantis to get into the race.”

Last week, after the Mar-a-Lago search, Trump’s lead over DeSantis in a potential primary matchup widened by 10 points. But beyond gaming out DeSantis’s diminished options, the takeaway from the federal investigation is the simple fact that an angry septuagenarian still holds the Grand Old Party in a vise grip. Whatever succession plans those who dutifully kissed the ring were hatching, their political fortunes and futures remain tied to Trump.

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Elaine Godfrey

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August 16, 2022