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The '''Shannon number''', named after [[Claude Shannon]], is a conservative lower bound (not an estimate) of the game-tree complexity of chess of 10120, based on an average of about 103 possibilities of a move for White followed by one for Black and a typical game lasting about 40 such pairs of moves.

== History ==

Shannon calculated it to demonstrate the impracticality of solving chess by brute force, in his 1950 paper "[[Programming a Computer for Playing Chess]". 

This influential paper introduced the field of computer chess.

== See also ==

* [[Chess]]
* [[Claude Shannon]]
* [[Computer science]]
* [[Information theory]]

== External links ==

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number Shannon number] @ Wikipedia

[[Category:Claude Shannon]]
[[Category:Games]]
[[Category:Information theory]]
[[Category:Mathematics]]