Black Hole Zeckendorf Games
Abstract
Zeckendorf proved that every positive integer can be written as a decomposition of non-adjacent Fibonacci numbers. Baird-Smith, Epstein, Flint, and Miller converted the process of decomposing an integer into a 2-player game, using the moves of and , where is the Fibonacci number. They showed non-constructively that for , Player 2 has a winning strategy: a constructive solution remains unknown. We expand on this by investigating ``black hole'' variants of this game. The Black Hole Zeckendorf game is played with any but solely in columns for . Gameplay is similar to the original Zeckendorf game, except any piece that would be placed on for is locked out in a ``black hole'' and removed from play. With these constraints, we analyze the games with black holes on and and construct a solution for specific configurations, using a non-constructive proof to lead to a constructive one. We also examine a pre-game in which players take turns placing down pieces in the outermost columns before the decomposition phase, and find constructive solutions for any .
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2409.10981,
title = {Black Hole Zeckendorf Games},
author = {Caroline Cashman and Steven J. Miller and Jenna Shuffleton and Daeyoung Son},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.10981},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
43 pages, 51 figures