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Subtract A Square
Subtract-a-square (also referred to as take-a-square) is a two-player mathematical subtraction game. It is played by two people with a pile of coins (or other tokens) between them. The players take turns removing coins from the pile, always removing a non-zero square number of coins. The game is usually played as a '' normal play'' game, which means that the player who removes the last coin wins. It is an impartial game, meaning that the set of moves available from any position does not depend on whose turn it is. Solomon W. Golomb credits the invention of this game to Richard A. Epstein.. Example A normal play game starting with 13 coins is a win for the first player provided they start with a subtraction of 1: player 1: 13 - 1*1 = 12 Player 2 now has three choices: subtract 1, 4 or 9. In each of these cases, player 1 can ensure that within a few moves the number 2 gets passed on to player 2: player 2: 12 - 1*1 = 11 player 2: 12 - 2*2 = 8 player 2: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subtraction Game
In combinatorial game theory, a subtraction game is an abstract strategy game whose state can be represented by a natural number or vector of numbers (for instance, the numbers of game tokens in piles of tokens, or the positions of pieces on board) and in which the allowed moves reduce these numbers., "Subtraction games", pp. 83–86. Often, the moves of the game allow any number to be reduced by subtracting a value from a specified ''subtraction set'', and different subtraction games vary in their subtraction sets. These games also vary in whether the last player to move wins (the normal play convention) or loses (misère play convention). Another winning convention that has also been used is that a player who moves to a position with all numbers zero wins, but that any other position with no moves possible is a draw. Examples Examples of notable subtraction games include the following: * Nim is a game whose state consists of multiple piles of tokens, such as coins or matchsticks, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sprague–Grundy Theorem
In combinatorial game theory, the Sprague–Grundy theorem states that every impartial game under the normal play convention is equivalent to a one-heap game of nim, or to an infinite generalization of nim. It can therefore be represented as a natural number, the size of the heap in its equivalent game of nim, as an ordinal number in the infinite generalization, or alternatively as a nimber, the value of that one-heap game in an algebraic system whose addition operation combines multiple heaps to form a single equivalent heap in nim. The Grundy value or nim-value of any impartial game is the unique nimber that the game is equivalent to. In the case of a game whose positions are indexed by the natural numbers (like nim itself, which is indexed by its heap sizes), the sequence of nimbers for successive positions of the game is called the nim-sequence of the game. The Sprague–Grundy theorem and its proof encapsulate the main results of a theory discovered independently by R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematical Games
A mathematical game is a game whose rules, strategies, and outcomes are defined by clear mathematical parameters. Often, such games have simple rules and match procedures, such as Tic-tac-toe and Dots and Boxes. Generally, mathematical games need not be conceptually intricate to involve deeper computational underpinnings. For example, even though the rules of Mancala are relatively basic, the game can be rigorously analyzed through the lens of combinatorial game theory. Mathematical games differ sharply from mathematical puzzles in that mathematical puzzles require specific mathematical expertise to complete, whereas mathematical games do not require a deep knowledge of mathematics to play. Often, the arithmetic core of mathematical games is not readily apparent to players untrained to note the statistical or mathematical aspects. Some mathematical games are of deep interest in the field of recreational mathematics. When studying a game's core mathematics, arithmetic theory i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wythoff's Game
Wythoff's game is a two-player mathematical subtraction game, played with two piles of counters. Players take turns removing counters from one or both piles; when removing counters from both piles, the numbers of counters removed from each pile must be equal. The game ends when one player removes the last counter or counters, thus winning. An equivalent description of the game is that a single chess queen is placed somewhere on a large grid of squares, and each player can move the queen towards the lower left corner of the grid: south, west, or southwest, any number of steps. The winner is the player who moves the queen into the corner. The two Cartesian coordinates of the queen correspond to the sizes of two piles in the formulation of the game involving removing counters from piles. Martin Gardner in his March 1977 "Mathematical Games column" in ''Scientific American'' claims that the game was played in China under the name 捡石子 ''jiǎn shízǐ'' ("picking stones"). The D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Misère
Misère ( French for "destitution"), misere, bettel, betl, or (German for "beggar"; equivalent terms in other languages include , , ) is a bid in various card games, and the player who bids misère undertakes to win no tricks or as few as possible, usually at no trump, in the round to be played. This does not allow sufficient variety to constitute a game in its own right, but it is the basis of such trick-avoidance games as Hearts, and provides an optional contract for most games involving an auction. The term or category may also be used for some card game of its own with the same aim, like Black Peter. A misère bid usually indicates an extremely poor hand, hence the name. An open or lay down misère, or misère ouvert is a 500 bid where the player is so sure of losing every trick that they undertake to do so with their cards placed face-up on the table. Consequently, 'lay down misère' is Australian gambling slang for a predicted easy victory. In Skat, the bidding can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asymptotics
In mathematical analysis, asymptotic analysis, also known as asymptotics, is a method of describing limiting behavior. As an illustration, suppose that we are interested in the properties of a function as becomes very large. If , then as becomes very large, the term becomes insignificant compared to . The function is said to be "''asymptotically equivalent'' to , as ". This is often written symbolically as , which is read as " is asymptotic to ". An example of an important asymptotic result is the prime number theorem. Let denote the prime-counting function (which is not directly related to the constant pi), i.e. is the number of prime numbers that are less than or equal to . Then the theorem states that \pi(x)\sim\frac. Asymptotic analysis is commonly used in computer science as part of the analysis of algorithms and is often expressed there in terms of big O notation. Definition Formally, given functions and , we define a binary relation f(x) \sim g(x) \quad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moser–de Bruijn Sequence
In number theory, the Moser–de Bruijn sequence is an integer sequence named after Leo Moser and Nicolaas Govert de Bruijn, consisting of the sums of distinct powers of 4, or equivalently the numbers whose binary representations are nonzero only in even positions. These numbers grow in proportion to the square numbers, and are the squares for a modified form of arithmetic without Carry (arithmetic), carrying. When the values in the sequence are doubled, their differences are all non-square. Every non-negative integer has a unique representation as the sum of a sequence member and a doubled sequence member. This decomposition into sums can be used to define a bijection between the integers and pairs of integers, to define coordinates for the Z-order curve, and to construct inverse pairs of transcendental numbers with simple decimal representations. A simple recurrence relation allows values of the Moser–de Bruijn sequence to be calculated from earlier values, and can be used ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mex (mathematics)
In mathematics, the mex of a subset of a well-ordered set is the smallest value from the whole set that does not belong to the subset. That is, it is the minimum value of the complement set. The name "mex" is shorthand for "''m''inimum ''ex''cluded" value. Beyond sets, subclasses of well-ordered classes have minimum excluded values. Minimum excluded values of subclasses of the ordinal numbers are used in combinatorial game theory to assign nim-values to impartial games. According to the Sprague–Grundy theorem, the nim-value of a game position is the minimum excluded value of the class of values of the positions that can be reached in a single move from the given position. Minimum excluded values are also used in graph theory, in greedy coloring algorithms. These algorithms typically choose an ordering of the vertices of a graph and choose a numbering of the available vertex colors. They then consider the vertices in order, for each vertex choosing its color to be the minimu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nim-sum
In mathematics, the nimbers, also called ''Grundy numbers'', are introduced in combinatorial game theory, where they are defined as the values of heaps in the game Nim. The nimbers are the ordinal numbers endowed with ''nimber addition'' and ''nimber multiplication'', which are distinct from ordinal addition and ordinal multiplication. Because of the Sprague–Grundy theorem which states that every impartial game is equivalent to a Nim heap of a certain size, nimbers arise in a much larger class of impartial games. They may also occur in partisan games like Domineering. Nimbers have the characteristic that their Left and Right options are identical, following a certain schema, and that they are their own negatives, such that a positive ordinal may be added to another positive ordinal using nimber addition to find an ordinal of a lower value. The minimum excludant operation is applied to sets of nimbers. Uses Nim Nim is a game in which two players take turns removing ob ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural Density
In number theory, natural density (also referred to as asymptotic density or arithmetic density) is one method to measure how "large" a subset of the set of natural numbers is. It relies chiefly on the probability of encountering members of the desired subset when combing through the interval as ''n '' grows large. Intuitively, it is thought that there are more positive integers than perfect squares, since every perfect square is already positive, and many other positive integers exist besides. However, the set of positive integers is not in fact larger than the set of perfect squares: both sets are infinite and countable and can therefore be put in one-to-one correspondence. Nevertheless if one goes through the natural numbers, the squares become increasingly scarce. The notion of natural density makes this intuition precise for many, but not all, subsets of the naturals (see Schnirelmann density, which is similar to natural density but defined for all subsets of \mathbb). If ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Square Number
In mathematics, a square number or perfect square is an integer that is the square (algebra), square of an integer; in other words, it is the multiplication, product of some integer with itself. For example, 9 is a square number, since it equals and can be written as . The usual notation for the square of a number is not the product , but the equivalent exponentiation , usually pronounced as " squared". The name ''square'' number comes from the name of the shape. The unit of area is defined as the area of a unit square (). Hence, a square with side length has area . If a square number is represented by ''n'' points, the points can be arranged in rows as a square each side of which has the same number of points as the square root of ''n''; thus, square numbers are a type of figurate numbers (other examples being Cube (algebra), cube numbers and triangular numbers). Square numbers are non-negative. A non-negative integer is a square number when its square root is again an intege ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Furstenberg–Sárközy Theorem
In mathematics, a square-difference-free set is a set of natural numbers, no two of which differ by a square number. Hillel Furstenberg and András Sárközy proved in the late 1970s the Furstenberg–Sárközy theorem of additive number theory showing that, in a certain sense, these sets cannot be very large. In the game of subtract a square, the positions where the next player loses form a square-difference-free set. Another square-difference-free set is obtained by doubling the Moser–de Bruijn sequence. The best known upper bound on the size of a square-difference-free set of numbers up to n is only slightly sublinear, but the largest known sets of this form are significantly smaller, of size \approx n^. Closing the gap between these upper and lower bounds remains an open problem. The sublinear size bounds on square-difference-free sets can be generalized to sets where certain other polynomials are forbidden as differences between pairs of elements. Example An example of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
