images21.jpgHow smart are computers become? They said very smart, at least by one measure. Do you know that a computer have defeated a human world class champion at chess for the first time?
Yes, according to the 1995 issue of Discover magazine, a computer have defeated a human world class champion at chess for the first time. Russian Grand Master Garry Kasparov was outwitted by Genius 2, a computer program designed by an English physicist Richard Lang, who called himself a mediocre chess player.
Chess programs like Lang’s work by focusing in what computers do best, long and intricate calculations. Before deciding on a move, the program examines each of the roughly 36 possibilities in an average game situation. The Genius 2 lies on the way it prunes the possibility tree, ruling out bad moves from the start. But the software also had help from the hardware. Lang’s computer uses a speedy Intel Pentium microprocessor that can executes 166 million instructions per second.
This human and computer chess event will be a remarkable part of the technology history today and for the future.