Games and Math
Pam Sorooshian
from the UnschoolingDiscussion list
You all do realize, of course, that mathematicians don't sit around
doing the kind of math that you learned in school. They don't sit
around and do long division or divide fractions or even solve quadratic
equations 🙂.
What they do is "play around." In fact, they play games. Some games are
number games, some are spatial puzzles, some are strategy games and
others are logic games.
They don't just play the same old games, though. Mostly, they take a
"game" that has been played and won by somebody and they change the
rules a little and then they watch it play out and look at how the play
of the game changes and how the outcomes change.
Only the very most brilliant mathematician ever makes up a whole new
game.
So - when you play games, you are doing exactly what mathematicians
really do IF you fool with the games a bit, experiment, see how the
play change if you change a rule here and there.
There are lots of ways to change game rules - sometimes a simple
seemingly innocuous change can have major impacts on how the game plays
out and what the outcome is. What if you let people have the option of
skipping a turn, for example? Or - what if at the end of a turn they
roll a die and call out a number - if they get a match with the number
on the die, they get an extra turn.
Oh - and when you make up games and they flop - be sure to examine why
they flop - that is a big huge part of what mathematicians do, too.
-pam
Commentary on Pam's Games Writing
I am tempted to mention about Las Vegas, so I will — before my
first trip there, at the age of 30-something for a national conference, I
studied guides to casino games and their relative odds, memorized the blackjack
combinations and underlying frequencies, when to fold or double down, and why,
et cetera.
Fascinating stuff, a surreal world of
they-never-taught-me-this-in-school math wrapped in chandeliers, tuxedoes and the kind of magic and illusions
that both dreams and nightmares are made of. (I also studied how the casinos
operate psychologically, but that is for another thread!)
A big eye-opener for me was realizing that gambling games are math
magic and that math magic and illusions are just like all magic and illusions —
from tic-tac-toe to Houdini — once you "get" the underlying structure and why
it works, it is less interesting to just see it or do it over and over the
same way. The fun is in the discovery of new tricks and then sharing them with
each other! 🙂
JJ
archived original
More by Pam Sorooshian
other math
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Originally on the UnschoolingDiscussion mailing list (gone now, along with other yahoogroups)