HACKENBUSH: a window to a new world of math on HackerTube: recommended by 3 Hacker News commenters across 3 separate months, 2022–2025.
explainer · intro · evergreen
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.
“I found the following video extremely useful and well-visualized”
3 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
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
in “Transfinite NIM (the game, not the programming language)” · View on HN
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]
in “Numbers Are Leaves” · View on HN
All numbers are fictitious :) Though, I think "games" built on surreal numbers are akin to these. [link] An accessible intro: ▶ this video
in “Indefinite and Fictitious Numbers” · View on HN