HACKENBUSH: a window to a new world of math

Owen Maitzen3 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2022–2025

YouTube

explainer · intro · evergreen · 2022–2025 on HN

Owen Maitzen's animated hour-long introduction to Hackenbush, a simple combinatorial game, and how its strategy leads to surreal numbers and the roots of the number system.

HN recommends it as an accessible, well-visualized entry point to Hackenbush, surreal numbers and their link to Nim.

3 comments from Hacker News

@lblume2025-02 · in “Transfinite NIM (the game, not the programming language)”

Nim is, in fact, a proper subset of Hackenbush, a game extensively studied by Conway. I found the following video extremely useful and well-visualized: ▶ this video

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@nthingtohide2024-12 · in “Numbers Are Leaves”

HACKENBUSH: a window to a new world of math ▶ this video Thanks for the blogpost, I think you will like this above SOME3 entry. Owen Maitzen committed suicide which is mentioned in the following video. The Endless Universe of "Bean and Nothingness" link

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@rini172022-09 · in “Indefinite and Fictitious Numbers”

All numbers are fictitious :) Though, I think "games" built on surreal numbers are akin to these. link An accessible intro: ▶ this video

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18 mo on HN

HACKENBUSH: a window to a new world of math

3 comments from Hacker News

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