No. randomwalker's point is that every branch must be proved to be a win.
>> "it would require devoting more computing resources than the planet has for a pretty significant amount of time"
This is also incorrect. As mentioned in other comments, the branching factor of chess implies that it is not brute force solvable using the entire universe as a computer--let alone just Earth.
No. randomwalker's point is that every branch must be proved to be a win.
In alpha-beta pruning, branches are only eliminated when they can only be reached through suboptimal play on one player's part. Suboptimal play on either player's part can clearly result in a loss for that player, but this is not very interesting.
This is also incorrect. As mentioned in other comments, the branching factor of chess implies that it is not brute force solvable using the entire universe as a computer--let alone just Earth.
This depends on how much time you're willing to devote to the task. My laptop (or my phone even) would be able to "solve" Chess given an infinite amount of time.
Now, the entire universe used as memory would be unable to store such a solution, but that isn't really germane to the decision problem.
>> "it would require devoting more computing resources than the planet has for a pretty significant amount of time"
This is also incorrect. As mentioned in other comments, the branching factor of chess implies that it is not brute force solvable using the entire universe as a computer--let alone just Earth.