Talk:List of mathematicians who studied chess

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[edit] Old talk

Wittgenstein?

Charles Matthews 18:01, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

He was a philosopher who made significant contributions in foundations of mathematics and mathematical logic. Giftlite

I know who he was. He wasn't a mathematician.

Charles Matthews 19:17, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Charles, Morphy didn't want to be labelled a professional chess player. Do you have a source that says Wittgenstein didn't want to be labelled a mathematician? Giftlite

Bertrand Russell was for a little time a working mathematician. He did much more self-description than Wittgenstein, his later student in philosophy. Wittgenstein was awarded a doctorate in philosophy by Cambridge. He then worked as an architect. I have a maths doctorate; I think calling him a mathematician is below the usual accuracy of Wikipedia.

Charles Matthews 11:07, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

All right, Charles, I've edited the page to reflect your comments. I still want to include Wittgenstein somehow although he used chess merely as an analogy in his philosophy. I hope this page will become interesting and educational to Wikipedia readers. Giftlite

Wittgenstein certainly wasn't a mathematician. Also, this article could also be used for the mathematics of chess, i.e. there are articles written in professional math journals, theorems proved, etc. about various aspects of the game itself (esp. endgames) This is actually what I was expecting when I came here, not a list of mathematicians who played chess. That's almost unimportant -- tons of mathematicians like and play chess, these are only the FAMOUS researchers who played. But why is that important?

I should clarify -- certainly mathematicians such as Shannon, Euwe, and Lasker, who made either significant theoretical contributions to understanding chess, or were eminent chess players, or both, deserve mention. But simply because someone is/was a famous researcher who happened to play chess doesn't seem encyclopedic. As I said above, LOTS of mathematicians play chess -- are we going to have "list of chemists who play(ed) chess", "list of architects who play(ed) chess", "list of painters who play(ed) chess"? There is a mathematical component to the game, but not so much as is generally believed by most people.

[edit] Hardy's comment on chess and mathematics

In Hardy's book A Mathematician's Apology, he writes that investigating chess does not produce any worthwhile (sic.?) mathematics. Maybe it should be added as a comment? I don't know if chess has given rise to any interesting mathematics, but it might be worthwhile to mention for the regular reader, who may assume that chess is of highly mathematical complexity. --cslarsen 00:35, 13 May 2006 (UTC)