The Open File - Chess in Outer Space
Submitted by
NM Zug on Wed, 05/06/2009 at 4:52pm.
The Open File
by Life Master Mike Petersen (Zug)
Chess in Outer Space
If you're a chessplayer and you've seen the movie, "2001, A Space Odyssey", then you're probably familiar with the scene where Hal (the computer) is playing a game of chess with one of the astronauts. At one point, Hal reels off a series of moves ending in mate. One of the moves Hal gives is Q-B3 (Queen to Bishop 3). They are using the old descriptive notation, something that would not happen today. Unfortunately for the technical correctness of the movie, the move should have been stated as Q-B6 (Queen to Bishop 6). This sort of stuff happened all the time when descriptive notation was used. In this system, each square has two names, depending on if it were a black move or a white move.
There have been other attempts at depicting chess in space. In Star Trek, they like to use the three-dimensional variant, while other science fiction shows have used the "normal" two-dimensional game.
However, the title of this piece is "Chess in Outer Space", not "Chess in Science Fiction". There is chess being played in space, and by that I mean the hard vacuum of interstellar space. It's being played about 1500 lightyears from Earth, near the constellation of Orion. I am not making this up. The game is obviously taking a long time to play. After all, the time scale of the Universe is something we can't imagine. The move shown is a knight move. The board is so immense we can't see the whole of it.
I have the feeling you don't believe me. Fine. Check it out for yourself below:
This is of course a photograph of the Horsehead Nebula. Now do you believe me?
It has been reported that Albert Einstein, while talking about the Uncertainty Principal in physics, stated, "God does not play dice with the Universe."
Apparently, however, He does play chess.
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