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19 votes
4 answers
1k views

Generalization of a mind-boggling box-opening puzzle

Motivation. Suppose we are given $6$ boxes, arranged in the following manner: $$\left[\begin{array}{ccc} 1 & 2 & 3 \\ 4 & 5 & 6 \end{array}\right]$$ Two of these boxes contain a ...
Dominic van der Zypen's user avatar
34 votes
7 answers
3k views

A hat puzzle question—how to prove the standard solution is optimal?

I am currently writing an essay on hat puzzles, and for the warm-up section I introduce some of the standard finite hat puzzles. One of these proceeds as follows: You and two friends are each given a ...
Joel David Hamkins's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
85 views

Winning criterion for a combinatorial game

Given $n$, let $\mathcal{R}$ be a set of pairs $(\rho,A)$ where $A\subseteq n, \rho\in 2^A$. Consider the following game between A and B. At each round $t$, A enumerates an $m\in n$ (that has not been ...
Jiayi Liu's user avatar
  • 909
0 votes
1 answer
4k views

Calculate the probability of winning for a selected tic-tac-toe player

I am not a mathematician, I am a programmer. Sorry, if formulation of the problem is inexact. I want to calculate the probability of winning for a selected tic-tac-toe player. I have a directed graph ...
Maxim Polishchuk's user avatar
46 votes
7 answers
10k views

Conway's game of life for random initial position

What is the behavior of Conway's game of life when the initial position is random? -- We can ask this question on an infinite grid or on an $n$ by $n$ table (planar or on a torus). Specifically ...
Gil Kalai's user avatar
  • 24.7k
4 votes
3 answers
1k views

Probability theory and measuring the true strength of chessplayers

If you wanted to measure the strength of, say, a chess player, the best way would involve knowing the true value of each position: then you could compute the frequency $W$ with which the player finds ...
David Feldman's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
1k views

A Game of Knights and Queens

Let $m,n,u,v \in \mathbb{N}$ be parameters with $m,n \geq 3$. Suppose two players play a game on a $m \times n$ chess board and we denote the squares of the board by the set of points $ (i,j) $ such ...
Stanley Yao Xiao's user avatar