[r-t] Method Generator

[Alexander Holroyd]

To get a very rough idea of the possible numbers, consider the (false) 
method &xxx4xxx36xxx5xxx7,2.  This has 42 locations in the half lead where 
you can insert two consecutive places in a dodge, giving 2^42 > 4 billion 
possibilities.  If you want no 3 consecutive blows, it will be closer to 
1.618^42 ~ 500 million (1.618 is the golden ratio).  Some of these will be 
false - since falseness can occur in 2 possible places in each section, 
the probability of such a method being true might be something like 
(7/8)^8 = 0.34, leading to an estimate of maybe 200 million methods of 
this type.

Of course, these methods are far from being the only ones.

Based on the above and vague intuition, I would guess the total number is 
between a billion and a trillion.

But I agree with Mark - why would you want this?

cheers, Ander

On Wed, 15 Apr 2015, Mark Davies wrote:

> Stephen Beckingham writes,
>
>> Does anyone know of any software capable of producing big lists
>> of TD Major methods? I've always used methgen for smaller lists
>> (up to approx half a million methods at a time), but it struggles
>> with anything bigger. I'd like to generate all regular TD methods
>> with a maximum of 2 consecutive blows in a position, including
>> things like single & double changes, and even such unspeakables
>> as 78's away from the half lead.
>
> I'm not sure quite how big that would be, but I'm guessing pretty big. The 
> largest method searches I've done have been performed in comparatively tiny 
> spaces.
>
> What are you looking for, exactly? I find the best approach is to construct, 
> or prune down to, methods meeting the criteria I want.
>
> MBD
>
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