Olivetti Club
Tuesday, September 9, 2014 - 4:30pm
Malott 406
It is well known that winning is not the most important thing... It is the only thing! Thus, in this talk, we will walk around the surface of the most childish branch of Mathematics: games!
"What is my best outcome?" "What should I move?" "Is there a winning strategy?" are questions that probably arise while playing every game. We will develop some ways to approach these questions while focusing on games in which players have perfect information, which means that they have all the necessary information to make a decision.
We will discuss several games and strategies, ranging from nim to chess and end up with the Sprague-Grundy Theorem, which states that every impartial game under the normal play convention is equivalent to a nimber.
Refreshments will be served in the lounge at 4:00 PM.