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Category Archives: Games
Ancient icosahedron
Via Tumblr, check out this ancient Greek die with 20 sides in the shape of an icosahedron:
Posted in Games, History, Mathematics
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Doughnut Pool Table
Why are most billiards tables always rectangular? The artist Cleon Daniel has designed and built a round “doughnut pool table” (pictured below) for our edification. You can check out more of the artist’s work here via Design Boom. (Hat tip: Cliff Pickover.)
Posted in Art, Games
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Bargaining and Betrayal in Breaking Bad
Last fall, we posted the abstract to our work-in-progress titled “Breaking Bad and the Natural Law Tradition.” Originally, we were going to write about the conflict between meth kingpin Walter White (alias Heisenberg) and DEA agent Hank Schrader from a … Continue reading
Edge-matching puzzle with no logical solution
Check out the “edge-matching” puzzle pictured above. The setup of this game consists of seven contiguous hexagons arranged inside a circle. The edge of each hexagon is assigned a number from 1 to 6. The goal of this game is to match the numbers … Continue reading
Posted in Games
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The Mathematics of Bookmaking
In the gambling world, vigorish refers to the amount charged by a bookmaker, or bookie, for taking a bet from a gambler. We found the following formal definition of vigorish on the walls of a tavern in the Old Town … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Games, Probability
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Pop Quiz (game theory edition)
The image above (courtesy of Matt H. Evans) contains four colorful quadrants depicting the basic elements of game theory, a mathematical approach to human behavior. Which one of these quadrants, however, is redundant?
Game of Chicken (cult classic edition)
Can we model politics, litigation, and other forms of competition as games of chicken?
prior probability 