You Can't Predict a Game of Pinball (Jeffrey Heninger, 2023)

[centaur]

link: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/epgCXiv3Yy3qgcsys/you-can-t-predict-a-game-of-pinball
mirror: https://archive.li/ZqAZR

While the author obviously exploits pinball to make his point, the article has some interesting tidbits for somebody passionate about physics & such (or maybe exploring new ways to place jet bumpers...)

Quote:

You cannot prepare the initial position of the pinball with better than atomic precision, and atomic precision only allows you to predict the motion of the pinball between the disks with centimeter precision for less than 12 bounces. It is impossible to predict a game of pinball for more than 12 bounces in the future. This is true for an arbitrary intelligence, with an arbitrarily precise simulation of the pinball machine, and arbitrarily good manufacturing & launch systems.

and

Conclusion​

It is in principle impossible to predict the motion of a pinball as it moves between the top three disks for more than 12 bounces. A superintelligence might be better than us at making predictions after 8 bounces, if it can design higher resolution cameras or more precise ball and board machining. But it too will run into the low prediction ceiling I have shown here.

Perhaps you think that this argument proves too much. Pinball is not completely a game of chance. How do some people get much better at pinball than others?

If you watch a few games of professional pinball, the answer becomes clear. The strategy typically is to catch the ball with the flippers, then to carefully hit the balls so that it takes a particular ramp which scores a lot of points and then returns the ball to the flippers. Professional pinball players try to avoid the parts of the board where the motion is chaotic. This is a good strategy because, if you cannot predict the motion of the ball, you cannot guarantee that it will not fall directly between the flippers where you cannot save it. Instead, professional pinball players score points mostly from the non-chaotic regions where it is possible to predict the motion of the pinball.3

Pinball is typical for a chaotic system. The sensitive dependence on initial conditions renders long term predictions impossible. If you cannot predict what will happen, you cannot plan a strategy that allows you to perform consistently well. There is a ceiling on your abilities because of the interactions with the chaotic system. In order to improve your performance you often try to avoid the chaos and focus on developing your skill in places where the world is more predictable.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

Funny article. It kinda sounds like he's saying "I've never actually played a PB machine, but through sheer deduction, I've figured out that it contains unpredictable, chaotic factors that good players must deal with, one way or another."

Well... yeah.

 

[centaur]

Well, you know how the joke goes...

Milk production at a dairy farm was low, so the farmer wrote to the local university, asking for help from academia. A multidisciplinary team of professors was assembled, headed by a theoretical physicist, and two weeks of intensive on-site investigation took place. The scholars then returned to the university, notebooks crammed with data, where the task of writing the report was left to the team leader. Shortly thereafter the physicist returned to the farm, saying to the farmer, "I have the solution, but it works only in the case of spherical cows in a vacuum."

 

[FireDragon76]

Interesting article.

It does reinforce an intuition I had, that older pinball simulations that used alot of randomness instead of dynamic physics for non-flipper objects, were probably onto something. Bumpers and slingshots are suppossed to be unpredictable, after all. Bumpers, pins, those are all relics from the days when pinball was a gambling game and designers filled tables with them (there was even a table called simply "Bumper" that was almost nothing but bumpers).

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

Interesting article.

It does reinforce an intuition I had, that older pinball simulations that used alot of randomness instead of dynamic physics for non-flipper objects, were probably onto something. Bumpers and slingshots are suppossed to be unpredictable, after all. Bumpers, pins, those are all relics from the days when pinball was a gambling game and designers filled tables with them (there was even a table called simply "Bumper" that was almost nothing but bumpers).

Not to speak ill of our impending Skynet masters, but "that" and a buck will get you a decent cuppa joe, right?

 

[AnonTet]

I always know the ball's going to drain...

 

[FireDragon76]

link: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/epgCXiv3Yy3qgcsys/you-can-t-predict-a-game-of-pinball
mirror: https://archive.li/ZqAZR

While the author obviously exploits pinball to make his point, the article has some interesting tidbits for somebody passionate about physics & such (or maybe exploring new ways to place jet bumpers...)

Quote:

and

Bumpers started out as purely passive devices to randomize the ball path. Some time after the invention of the flipper, it became a red herring to lure novices into.

In the past 30-40 years, designers have gotten alot more honest about them. In Data East's "Star Wars", they are called the Sarlac Pit, and in Twilight Zone, they are called "The Town Square" (a reference to a Twilight Zone episode about mayhem).