History
The game was invented by the Danish mathematician Piet Hein, who introduced it in 1942 at the Niels Bohr Institute. It was independently re-invented in 1947 by the mathematician John Nash at Princeton University. It became known in Denmark under the name Polygon (though Hein called it CON-TAC-TIX); Nash's fellow players at first called the game Nash. According to Martin Gardner, some of the Princeton University students also referred to the game as John (according to some sources this was because they played the game using the mosaic of the bathroom floor). However, according to Sylvia Nasar's biography of John Forbes Nash A Beautiful Mind, the game was referred to as "Nash" or "John" after its apparent creator. John Nash was said to have thought of this game, independent of Hein's, during his graduate years at Princeton. In 1952 Parker Brothers marketed a version. They called their version "Hex" and the name stuck.
Hex is an abstract strategy game that belongs to the general category of "connection" games. Other connection games include Omni, Y and Havannah. All of these games bear varying degrees of similarity to the ancient Asian game of Go.
Read more about this topic: Hex (board Game)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of some metaphors.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the future will differ according to the decision which we make.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)