The Tree of Knowledge, Daniel Miller [unputdownable books txt] 📗

the thief used a Trithemius cipher, which, Ying reminded me, you have always recommended as a quick and easy way to make a relatively complex cipher.”

Ying added, “And the thief also used the term ‘prima facie,’ which I remembered that you used because I didn’t even know what you meant when you first wrote it.”

Professor Turner smiled at the young woman, but Albert could see there was something like pain in his eyes.

“That is undoubtedly true, young lady. Anything else I should know?”

Ying paused. “No, that’s about it. We were just wondering what your thoughts are. Do you think this could have been a student of yours?”

Angus Turner sighed, removed his glasses, and sat back in his chair. He swirled the iced lemonade in his glass, and for the first time in his life, he looked tired, even frail. “I’m afraid that this tree was indeed created by a former student of mine . . . and I know who the student is.”

Chapter 11

“Who?” asked Albert, leaning further forward in his chair, his elbow nearly knocking the lemonade glass off the table.

The professor’s eyes darted between Ying and Albert. He sipped his lemonade and tapped his glass three times. “What I’m about to tell you, fewer than ten people in the world know. Everything I tell you now stays here, you understand.”

Ying and Albert nodded, heads down in agreement.

The professor paused, and all that could be heard was the creak of his wooden chair.

“As you know, I have always been passionate about the power of logic. Early in my academic career, I dedicated myself almost exclusively to studying logic and reasoning, and how it could be applied in a variety of arenas. At first, because we were in the midst of the Cold War, I researched how logic could be more effectively applied to cryptography. What I found, of course, is that by using logic, most ciphers on this earth could be cracked.”

“Yeah, but you would need a lot of time,” added Ying.

Turner rose from his seat and began to pace the room.

“Exactly. Some codes were so complex that for a human being to crack it by hand could take months, by which point the cipher would have served its function. This led me to extend my study of the potential impact of computers on logic. It was at this point that I created the game tree or decision tree. As you know, computers are nothing more than incredibly complex decision trees consisting of a series of either-or scenarios. The ability to automate this logical process has given us the capability not only to crack codes but to create entirely different virtual realities.” The professor paced the room, and his hands conducted the story like a symphony.

“Is that when you started doing the testing with board games, Professor?” said Albert.

“Yes. My goal was to design a program that could beat any human being in a common game. I started with tic-tac-toe because of the relative simplicity of the game. Immediately, I was astounded by how complex the game was relative to some of my other work.”

“Yeah, I used to play with my mom back home in Singapore. I think I read once that tic-tac-toe has twenty-six thousand eight hundred and thirty possible games.”

Turner nodded. “Which makes it a relatively complex programming challenge, especially when you consider the technology I was working with at the time. Picture a computer the size of this room. However, after spending an obscene amount of time on the problem, I was able to design a rudimentary tic-tac-toe program that was unbeatable.”

“Apparently, you haven’t seen me play,” said Ying.

Turner smiled. “Of course, I’m sure no program could beat you, Ms. Koh. That said, having conquered tic-tac-toe, I moved on to my true love: chess. We began to create chess decision trees, but we quickly realized that the complexity of chess was almost unknowable.”

“Isn’t the number of chess moves something like ten to the one hundred and twentieth power?” ventured Albert.

“Yes, and to give you an idea of how complex that is, the number of atoms in the known universe is only ten to the eighty-first power. While I was aware that I wouldn’t be able to design a chess program that would beat grand masters with the computer power that was available at the time, I was able to design a program that could beat amateurs. I knew that it was only a matter of time before a computer would be able to beat a human being.

“At around the same time, a chess grand master named David Levy made an audacious prediction. He said that there wouldn’t be a computer program developed in the next decade that would be able to beat him in chess.”

Ying and Albert laughed.

“I privately scoffed as well, thinking that it would be only a matter of a few years. But sure enough, ten years later, Levy played a game against Chess 4.7, the strongest computer program at the time, and handily defeated it.

“Of course, the reason for this is that chess is a game tree with a practically infinite number of branches. A computer program has to churn through each of these branches to come to the appropriate decision, while the human mind can, through a combination of creativity, intuition, and logic, quickly identify the branches of the tree that matter. It was then that it struck me . . . the human mind was the most powerful decision engine that the world has ever known, but up to that point, we had been using it for the societal equivalent of tic-tac-toe. I, like my colleagues, had been blinded to the real power of the confluence of the human mind and decision tree analysis, which was in the interaction of humanity. I realized that the tree of knowledge that the Bible refers to was not merely a metaphor; it was a reality. If I were able to use game trees in real time, in real life, then I would possess