Mission possible: Computers in chess and A-level mathematics

Extract

Twenty years ago one of the plots in the TV series Mission Impossible involved a chess tournament in which Leonard Nimoy (without the pointy ears, but in every other respect identical to his Star Trek persona) won a game by obeying the instructions of a computer relayed over an earphone. While many of the antics of the Impossibles remain … impossible, it is only be a matter of time until chess computers can defeat every human being on the planet. However a chess positioninvented by David Norwood [Daily Telegraph, Weekend p.28, 7 Aug 1993] shows that the game may not yet be over for homo sapiens. The position in figure 1 could occur in actual play, but is most unlikely to.