FOM: Chess quibble

[Julio Gonzalez Cabillon]

>Shipman wrote 9:14AM 1/22/98:
>
>>everyone with a rating equivalent to 1600 Elo points or higher;
>>there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of such players
>>worldwide


And at 10:40 AM 22/01/1998 +0100, Harvey Friedman wrote:

>I think "millions" is wrong. This is just a silly quibble, but may
>illustrate how easy it is to overestimate the masses when you (Shipman)
>are at such a high level. By the way, I "retired" from correspondence
>chess with a provisional rating of 2090 based on 11 wins and 1 draw. If
>I come back to chess, it will in the role of a mathematical investigator.
>
>[...]

As you know chess was *extremely* popular in the ex Soviet Union, and
still IS in the new Republics... Therefore, I do NOT think Shipman's
educated guess is wrong. A rating equivalent to 1600 Elo points, for
instance, is a very *low* rating indeed, and I would be very surprised
if one cannot find "hundreds of thousands if not millions" of such
players just taking *certain* countries of Eurasia (just think, for
instance, that chess is taught as a subject matter at school in many of
them). Any boy/girl with a basic training (say, school classes) would
*easily* reach 1600 Elo points, and even higher. Do not expect me to
provide conclusive data, nor a formal proof of Shipman's conjecture.

=====

On Sun, 21 Dec 1997 23:56:17 -0800 (PST) Sol Feferman wrote:

       > I plan to answer Gonzalez Cabillon about Wigner's wonder at
       > the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" separately.

For about a month I was away from the computer, and so I have not been
following the new threads. Anyhow, I do not find Feferman's reply. Should I?
And, in a quick lookup of postings related to the nature of mathematics,
I do not encounter the Wigner's dilemma as a real challenge to Hersh's
position. I think Reuben will agree with this philosophical challenge.
Any comments?

Greetings to all from sunny Montevideo,
                                            Julio GC


Julio Gonzalez Cabillon
Professor of Mathematics
jgc at adinet.com.uy, jgc at chasque.apc.org
Montevideo -- URUGUAY
Research interests: History of Mathematics,
Foundations of Mathematics, Philosophy of
Mathematics, Discrete Mathematics.