Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays (Academic Press, 1982) by Elwyn R. Berlekamp, John H. Conway, and Richard K. Guy is a compendium of information on mathematical games. It was first published in 1982 in two volumes.
The first volume introduces combinatorial game theory and its foundation in the surreal numbers; partizan and impartial games; Sprague–Grundy theory and misère games. The second volume applies the theorems of the first volume to many games, including nim, sprouts, dots and boxes, Sylver coinage, philosopher's football, fox and geese. A final section on puzzles analyzes the Soma cube, Rubik's Cube, peg solitaire, and Conway's game of life.
A republication of the work by A K Peters splits the content into four volumes.
Read more about Winning Ways For Your Mathematical Plays: Editions, Games Mentioned in The Book
Famous quotes containing the words winning, ways, mathematical and/or plays:
“Power-worship blurs political judgement because it leads, almost unavoidably, to the belief that present trends will continue. Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“Separated lovers cheat absence by a thousand fancies which have their own reality. They are prevented from seeing one another and they cannot write; nevertheless they find countless mysterious ways of corresponding, by sending each other the song of birds, the scent of flowers, the laughter of children, the light of the sun, the sighing of the wind, and the gleam of the stars—all the beauties of creation.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“The circumstances of human society are too complicated to be submitted to the rigour of mathematical calculation.”
—Marquis De Custine (1790–1857)
“In all the wide gamut of human experience, nothing plays so important a part as faith.... Faith that is as broad as the heavens and as wide as the earth. Faith that comprehends in its vast sympathies everything human as well as divine, and carries one with the swift sure wings of the angels directly to his goal.”
—Alice Foote MacDougall (1867–1945)