Programming a computer for playing chess" in The London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine, 7th series, 41, 1950, pp. 256-275 by Shannon, Claude E - 1950

FIRST EDITION OF "THE FIRST TECHNICAL PAPER ON COMPUTER CHESS" (Christies, Origins of Cyberspace Auction, 2005). Claude Shannon's seminal 1950 paper is considered "the foundation of computer chess" (Reilly, Milestones in Computer Science and Information Technology, 55). "The framework he introduced has guided most of the subsequent analysis of the problem" (Newell, Shaw, & Simon, 44). "Since the mid-1940s, scientists had aimed to create a thinking machine, an apparatus that could compete with or even surpass the human brain in logical operations, pattern recognition, problem solving and even language. Chess was found to be a useful testing ground because of its combination of simple rules and mind-bending complexity... Shannon was fascinated by chess' potential in the pursuit of what he called 'mechanized thinking.' But he became convinced that computer chess and other AI pursuits should not be modeled on human thought... Computers, at least as they were understood then, could calculate very quickly, following programmed instructions" (Shenk, 201, 211). Shannon believed that chess would be the ideal proving ground for this new type of intelligence. Believing that theoretically, "the game could be fully converted into one long mathematical formula," Shannon's paper was "concerned with the problem of constructing a computing routine or 'program' for a modern general purpose computer which will enable it to play chess" (Shannon; Shenk). It "was the first publication to describe how a position might be evaluated and how a game tree might be searched. The paper was the text of a lecture given by Shannon to the Institute of Radio Engineers on 9 March 1949) (Cooper & Leeuwen, Alan Turing, 644). This paper also includes an aside that came to be known as 'the Shannon number," the number of possible chess games that can be played. That number, also known as "the game tree complexity of chess," is based on Shannon's calculation on a logical approximation that each game has an average of 40 moves and each move a player chooses between 30 possible moves. That makes a total of 10120 possible games. This number is known as the number of Shannon. Shannon, an electrical engineer, was also known as "the father of information theory." CONDITION & DETAILS: London: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Ex-libris bearing only ghosting from the removal of a plate of the front flyleaf and faint stamps on the text block. There are no marks on the spine or title page. Full volume. 4to (10 x 7 inches; 250 x 175mm). 1299 pages. Illustration: In-text illustrations and plates throughout. Bound in red cloth, gilt-lettered at the spine. Slight scuffing and edge wear; slight fading at the spine. A large volume tightly and very solidly bound. Very small mark on the first page of the Shannon paper (see scan), otherwise bright and very clean throughout. Very good condition.