3,005 research outputs found
Building Nim
The game of nim, with its simple rules, its elegant solution and its
historical importance is the quintessence of a combinatorial game, which is why
it led to so many generalizations and modifications. We present a modification
with a new spin: building nim. With given finite numbers of tokens and stacks,
this two-player game is played in two stages (thus belonging to the same family
of games as e.g. nine-men's morris): first building, where players alternate to
put one token on one of the, initially empty, stacks until all tokens have been
used. Then, the players play nim. Of course, because the solution for the game
of nim is known, the goal of the player who starts nim play is a placement of
the tokens so that the Nim-sum of the stack heights at the end of building is
different from 0. This game is trivial if the total number of tokens is odd as
the Nim-sum could never be 0, or if both the number of tokens and the number of
stacks are even, since a simple mimicking strategy results in a Nim-sum of 0
after each of the second player's moves. We present the solution for this game
for some non-trivial cases and state a general conjecture
Graph Nim
Nim is a well-known two-player impartial combinatorial game. Various versions of playing Nim on graphs have been investigated. We investigate a new version of Nim called Graph Nim. Given a graph with n vertices and multiple edges, players take turns removing edges until there are no edges left. Players have to choose a vertex and remove at least one edge incident to the chosen vertex. The player that removes the last edge or edges wins the game. In this paper, we give the solution for certain game boards of Graph Nim, compare the game of Graph Nim to another impartial combinatorial game, and discuss open problems
Computational Utilities for the Game of Simplicial Nim
Simplicial nim games, a class of impartial games, have very interesting mathematical properties. Winning strategies on a simplicial nim game can be determined by the set of positions in the game whose Sprague-Grundy values are zero (also zero positions). In this work, I provide two major contributions to the study of simplicial nim games. First, I provide a modern and efficient implementation of the Sprague-Grundy function for an arbitrary simplicial complex, and discuss its performance and scope of viability. Secondly, I provide a method to find a simple mathematical expression to model that function if it exists. I show the effectiveness of this method on determining mathematical expressions that classify the set of zero positions onseveral simplicial nim games
Liveness of Randomised Parameterised Systems under Arbitrary Schedulers (Technical Report)
We consider the problem of verifying liveness for systems with a finite, but
unbounded, number of processes, commonly known as parameterised systems.
Typical examples of such systems include distributed protocols (e.g. for the
dining philosopher problem). Unlike the case of verifying safety, proving
liveness is still considered extremely challenging, especially in the presence
of randomness in the system. In this paper we consider liveness under arbitrary
(including unfair) schedulers, which is often considered a desirable property
in the literature of self-stabilising systems. We introduce an automatic method
of proving liveness for randomised parameterised systems under arbitrary
schedulers. Viewing liveness as a two-player reachability game (between
Scheduler and Process), our method is a CEGAR approach that synthesises a
progress relation for Process that can be symbolically represented as a
finite-state automaton. The method is incremental and exploits both
Angluin-style L*-learning and SAT-solvers. Our experiments show that our
algorithm is able to prove liveness automatically for well-known randomised
distributed protocols, including Lehmann-Rabin Randomised Dining Philosopher
Protocol and randomised self-stabilising protocols (such as the Israeli-Jalfon
Protocol). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first fully-automatic
method that can prove liveness for randomised protocols.Comment: Full version of CAV'16 pape
Combinatorial Games on Graphs
Combinatorial games are intriguing and have a tendency to engross students and lead them into a serious study of mathematics. The engaging nature of games is the basis for this thesis. Two combinatorial games along with some educational tools were developed in the pursuit of the solution of these games.
The game of Nim is at least centuries old, possibly originating in China, but noted in the 16th century in European countries. It consists of several stacks of tokens, and two players alternate taking one or more tokens from one of the stacks, and the player who cannot make a move loses. The formal and intense study of Nim culminated in the celebrated Sprague-Grundy Theorem, which is now one of the centerpieces in the theory of impartial combinatorial games. We study a variation on Nim, played on a graph. Graph Nim, for which the theory of Sprague-Grundy does not provide a clear strategy, was originally developed at the University of Colorado Denver. Graph Nim was first played on graphs of three vertices.
The winning strategy, and losing position, of three vertex Graph Nim has been discovered, but we will expand the game to four vertices and develop the winning strategies for four vertex Graph Nim.
Graph Theory is a markedly visual field of mathematics. It is extremely useful for graph theorists and students to visualize the graphs they are studying. There exists software to visualize and analyze graphs, such as SAGE, but it is often extremely difficult to learn how use such programs. The tools in GeoGebra make pretty graphs, but there is no automated way to make a graph or analyze a graph that has been built. Fortunately GeoGebra allows the use of JavaScript in the creation of buttons which allow us to build useful Graph Theory tools in GeoGebra. We will discuss two applets we have created that can be used to help students learn some of the basics of Graph Theory.
The game of thrones is a two-player impartial combinatorial game played on an oriented complete graph (or tournament) named after the popular fantasy book and TV series. The game of thrones relies on a special type of vertex called a king. A king is a vertex, k, in a tournament, T, which for all x in T either k beats x or there exists a vertex y such that k beats y and y beats x. Players take turns removing vertices from a given tournament until there is only one king left in the resulting tournament. The winning player is the one which makes the final move. We develop a winning position and classify those tournaments that are optimal for the first or second-moving player
Combinatorial and Additive Number Theory Problem Sessions: '09--'19
These notes are a summary of the problem session discussions at various CANT
(Combinatorial and Additive Number Theory Conferences). Currently they include
all years from 2009 through 2019 (inclusive); the goal is to supplement this
file each year. These additions will include the problem session notes from
that year, and occasionally discussions on progress on previous problems. If
you are interested in pursuing any of these problems and want additional
information as to progress, please email the author. See
http://www.theoryofnumbers.com/ for the conference homepage.Comment: Version 3.4, 58 pages, 2 figures added 2019 problems on 5/31/2019,
fixed a few issues from some presenters 6/29/201
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