Finally bought EternityII… in vain ?
Monday, March 9th, 2009
I learnt about this puzzle almost two years ago when it was launched. The principle si quite simple, a 16×16 pieces puzzle and a $2 Million prize for the first who can solve it.
Since that time I was thinking about algorithms and all the possible approaches to find a solution. It looks fairly simple but in fact it’s really tricky. Last december, the 1st results were published and nobody did actually find a complete solution yet.
The solver I am developing can now solve up to 12×12 similar puzzles so I thought I could get out and buy the actual puzzle to give it a try. Alas it is not available in shops anymore. I managed to find it on eBay and got it last week. I was really excited, but the same day, in a post sent on an eternity mailing list was a message stating that a group of hungarian students might have found a solution….. There’s no proof yet, and they’ll have to keep silent if they don’t want to be disqualified. I’ll try to persevere on finding a solution anyway, and we’ll know for sure at the end of the year.
Currently my macpro is running fulltime on its 8 processors, handling 150.000 positions/s…. I hope that using its power I’ll be able to get a close approach to a solution in the next months.