相关论文: Diagonal Peg Solitaire

We propose a new kind of sliding-block puzzle, called Gourds, where the objective is to rearrange 1 x 2 pieces on a hexagonal grid board of 2n + 1 cells with n pieces, using sliding, turning and pivoting moves. This puzzle has a single…

Consider the following one-player game. Take a well-formed sequence of opening and closing brackets. As a move, the player can pair any opening bracket with any closing bracket to its right, erasing them. The goal is to re-pair (erase) the…

In this paper, we study some cards shuffles which are used by magicians. We focus ourselves on the possibility to hit eventually the initial state after several shuffles. This is a classical problem arising in discrete dynamical systems.…

We study the conditions under which the iterated elimination of strictly dominated strategies is order independent and we identify a class of discontinuous games for which order does not matter. In this way, we answer the open problem…

We indulge in what mathematicians call frivolous activities. In Arithmetic Billiards, a ball is bouncing around in a rectangle. In Parity Checkers we place checkers on a checkerboard under certain parity constraints. Both activities turn…

Parity games are simple infinite games played on finite graphs with a winning condition that is expressive enough to capture nested least and greatest fixpoints. Through their tight relationship to the modal mu-calculus, they are used in…

We define a solitary game, the Yamanouchi toppling game, on any connected graph of n vertices. The game arises from the well-known chip-firing game when the usual relation of equivalence defined on the set of all configurations is replaced…

We give a simple and short proof of the fact that the board game of Y cannot end in a draw. Our proof, based on the analogous result for the game of Hex (the so-called 'Hex Theorem'), is purely topological and does not depend on the shape…

The problem of searching a polygonal region for an unpredictably moving intruder by a set of stationary guards, each carrying an orientable laser, is known as the Searchlight Scheduling Problem. Determining the computational complexity of…

In this paper outer, or dual, billiards outside regular polygons are studied; in particular, periodic points for cases of strictly convex "tables" and for regular n-gons with n = 3,4,6,8,12 are discussed. The main results of the paper are:…

In an introductory paper on dollar game played on a graph, Matt Baker wrote the following: ``The total number of borrowing moves required to win the game when playing the 'borrowing binge strategy' is independent of which borrowing moves…

We propose a combinatorial game on finite graphs, called Salmagundy, that is played by two protagonists, Dido and Mephisto. The game captures the logical structure of a proof of the resolution of singularities. In each round, the graph of…

While discounted payoff games and classic games that reduce to them, like parity and mean-payoff games, are symmetric, their solutions are not. We have taken a fresh view on the constraints that optimal solutions need to satisfy, and…

Juggling patterns can be described by a sequence of cards which keep track of the relative order of the balls at each step. This interpretation has many algebraic and combinatorial properties, with connections to Stirling numbers, Dyck…

In this work we present a hierarchical framework for solving discrete stochastic pursuit-evasion games (PEGs) in large grid worlds. With a partition of the grid world into superstates (e.g., "rooms"), the proposed approach creates a…

A simple relation is developed between elastic collisions of freely-moving point particles in one dimension and a corresponding billiard system. For two particles with masses m_1 and m_2 on the half-line x>0 that approach an elastic barrier…

This special issue on Peg Solitaire has been put together by John Beasley as guest editor, and reports work by John Harris, Alain Maye, Jean-Charles Meyrignac, George Bell, and others. Topics include: short solutions on the 6 x 6 board and…

This paper addresses the problem of steering a discrete-time linear dynamical system from an initial Gaussian distribution to a final distribution in a game-theoretic setting. One of the two players strives to minimize a quadratic payoff,…

This paper proposes a new method for finding closed-loop saddle points in zero-sum linear-quadratic stochastic differential games by decoupling their inherent structure. Specifically, we develop a nested iterative scheme that constructs a…

Much recent interest has focused on "open" dynamical systems, in which a classical map or flow is considered only until the trajectory reaches a "hole", at which the dynamics is no longer considered. Here we consider questions pertaining to…