TABLE OF CONTENTS Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
Albert Einstein
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.
Alfred North Whitehead
The year 1997 was a turning point in the popular understanding of the capability of modern computers to solve complex problems that we normally associated with human intellect and wisdom. The turning point had little to do with the design of database systems. In 1997 a supercomputer produced by IBM, named Deep Blue II, became the first ever computer to beat a reigning world chess champion: grandmaster Gary Kasparov. What changed on that day in 1997 was the realization that computers could actual compete successfully against the best human experts in an important domain that we normally associate with creative problem solving. Similarly, leading corporations have begun to produce advanced technology for the automated physical design of database systems.
The contest was the second between the two, Kasparov having beaten Deep Blue s earlier version in 1996. However, the 1997 confrontation was significantly more challenging. Deep Blue was significantly upgraded for the second confrontation. It boasted a 30-node massively parallel computer with 480 special-purpose (CPUs). Deep Blue was able to search to a depth of 12 moves (ply) ahead, [1] evaluating 200,000,000 positions per second, twice as fast as the system Kasparov had beaten in 1996. It contained...
