ChessCuriosity
More chess games than atoms
Meet the Shannon number.
A
ACCAT
19 Jul 2026
The number of possible chess games is astronomically large. The Shannon number estimates around 10120 — but even ignoring superscripts, it means a 1 followed by roughly 120 zeros.
That's far more than the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe (about 1080). Every game you play is almost certainly unique.