MATH 576 COMBINATORIAL GAME THEORY
Spring 2013 course syllabus

Instructor:  Prof. Lincoln Lu

Office: LC 400I, email: lu@math.sc.edu

Office hours: T, Th 12:30p.m.-- 2p.m. or by appointment.

Lecture time: T Th 9:30PM-10:45AM at LC 303B

Credit Hours:  3

Lecture and homework

Prerequisite:  MATH 526, MATH 544 OR MATH 574

Textbook:   Winning ways for your mathematical plays (vol I), second edition,  by Berlekamp, Conway, and Guy   published by A K Peters, Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Learning outcomes:   Through this course, students learn the winning strategy in in certain combinatorial games such as Nim, Hackenbush, and Domineering. They will learn equalities and inequalities among games, Sprague-Grundy theory of impartial games, games which are numbers. We shall cover most parts of the textbook and some supplemental material.

Homework:   Homework will be assigned roughly every other week and should be completed and be collected by next Wednesday.

Reading:  Reading the sections of the textbook corresponding to the assigned homework exercises is considered part of the homework assignment.

Exams:  There will be two exams given during lecture time.

Final project:   There is no final exam for this class. Instead, we will have a take-home final project, which is due on April 30th.

Grading: The homework is 30%. The first exam is 20%. The second exam is 20%. The final project is 30%. Your final grade is based on the percentage as follows.

Grading Scale

Grading Scale:

90-100% A

76-79% C+

60-65% D

86-89%   B+

70-75% C

0-59%   F

80-85%   B

66-69% D+

 


Links:

Conway's Game of Life

Peg Solitaire

Rubik's Cube