Twelve essays take a playful approach to mathematics, investigating the topology of a blanket, the odds of beating a superior tennis player, and how to distinguish between fact and fallacy.

"Have you ever played the addictive card game SET? Have you ever wondered about the connections between games and mathematics? . . . The Joy of SET takes readers on a fascinating journey into this seemingly simple card game and reveals its surprisingly deep and diverse mathematical dimensions. Absolutely no mathematical background is necessary to enjoy this book - all you need is a sense of curiosity and adventure. Originally invented in 1974 by Marsha Falco and officially released in 1991, SET has gained a widespread, loyal following. SET's eighty-one cards consist of one, two, or three symbols of different shapes (diamond, oval, squiggle), shadings (solid, striped, open), and colors (green, purple, red). In order to win, players must identify 'sets' of three cards for which each characteristic is the same - or different - on all the cards. SET's strategic and unique design opens connections to a plethora of mathematical disciplines, including geometry, modular arithmetic, combinatorics, probability, linear algebra, and computer simulations. The Joy of SET looks at these areas as well as avenues for further mathematical exploration. As the authors show, the relationship between SET and mathematics runs in both directions - playing this game has generated new mathematics, and the math has led to new questions about the game itself."--Provided by publisher.

Active engagement is the key to learning. You want your students doing something that stimulates them to ask questions and creates a need to know. Teaching Mathematics Through Games presents a variety of classroom-tested exercises and activities that provoke the active learning and curiosity that you hope to promote. These games run the gamut from well-known favorites like SET and Settlers of Catan to original games involving simulating structural inequality in New York or playing Battleship with functions. The book contains activities suitable for a wide variety of college mathematics courses, including general education courses, math for elementary education, probability, calculus, linear algebra, history of math, and proof-based mathematics. Some chapter activities are short term, such as a drop-in lesson for a day, and some are longer, including semester-long projects. All have been tested, refined, and include extensive implementation notes.

"Best-selling author and worst-drawing artist Ben Orlin expands his oeuvre with this interactive collection of mathematical games. Each taking a minute to learn and a lifetime to master, this treasure chest of 70-plus games will delight, educate, and entertain"--

Stanford mathematician and NPR Math Guy Keith Devlin explains why, fun aside, video games are the ideal medium to teach middle-school math. Aimed primarily at teachers and education researchers, but also of interest to game developers who want to produce videogames for mathematics education, Mathematics Education for a New Era: Video Games as a Med

A hilarious reeducation in mathematics-full of joy, jokes, and stick figures-that sheds light on the countless practical and wonderful ways that math structures and shapes our world. In Math With Bad Drawings, Ben Orlin reveals to us what math actually is; its myriad uses, its strange symbols, and the wild leaps of logic and faith that define the usually impenetrable work of the mathematician. Truth and knowledge come in multiple forms: colorful drawings, encouraging jokes, and the stories and insights of an empathetic teacher who believes that math should belong to everyone. Orlin shows us how to think like a mathematician by teaching us a brand-new game of tic-tac-toe, how to understand an economic crises by rolling a pair of dice, and the mathematical headache that ensues when attempting to build a spherical Death Star. Every discussion in the book is illustrated with Orlin's trademark "bad drawings," which convey his message and insights with perfect pitch and clarity. With 24 chapters covering topics from the electoral college to human genetics to the reasons not to trust statistics, Math with Bad Drawings is a life-changing book for the math-estranged and math-enamored alike.

This engaging book presents the essential mathematics needed to describe, simulate, and render a 3D world. Reflecting both academic and in-the-trenches practical experience, the authors teach you how to describe objects and their positions, orientations, and trajectories in 3D using mathematics. The text provides an introduction to mathematics for game designers, including the fundamentals of coordinate spaces, vectors, and matrices. It also covers orientation in three dimensions, calculus and dynamics, graphics, and parametric curves.

Presents twenty games designed to teach fundamental math concepts whether played alone or with others.

Game theory provides a mathematical setting for analyzing competition and cooperation in interactive situations. The theory has been famously applied in economics, but is relevant in many other sciences, such as political science, biology, and, more recently, computer science. This book presents an introductory and up-to-date course on game theory addressed to mathematicians and economists, and to other scientists having a basic mathematical background. The book is self-contained, providing a formal description of the classic game-theoretic concepts together with rigorous proofs of the main results in the field. The theory is illustrated through abundant examples, applications, and exercises. The style is distinctively concise, while offering motivations and interpretations of the theory to make the book accessible to a wide readership. The basic concepts and results of game theory are given a formal treatment, and the mathematical tools necessary to develop them are carefully presented. Cooperative games are explained in detail, with bargaining and TU-games being treated as part of a general framework. The authors stress the relation between game theory and operations research. The book is suitable for a graduate or an advanced undergraduate course on game theory.

Originally written to define the relation between the theories of transfinite numbers and mathematical games, the resulting work is a mathematically sophisticated but eminently enjoyable guide to game theory. By defining numbers as the strengths of positions in certain games, the author arrives at a new class that includes both real numbers and ordinal numbers: surreal numbers. The second edition presents developments in mathematical game theory, focusing on surreal numbers and the additive theory of partizan games.