Sylver Coinage

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Sylver Coinage is a game invented by J. H. Conway in which players take turns choosing positive integers—but a player may only choose an integer that cannot be expressed as a sum of positive multiples of integers already chosen. The player who is forced to choose “1” loses the game. The name of the game is a nod to J. J. Sylvester, who proved that is the largest sum that cannot be paid exactly using coins of value
and
, if
and
are relatively prime. Gameplay is simple: just click the value you want to "coin", and illegal moves will be removed from the board automatically. Finding a winning strategy may not be so simple, however.
Contributed by: Jacob A. Siehler (March 2011)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
Snapshots
Details
Sylver Coinageon Wikipedia.
E. R. Berlekamp, J. H. Conway, and R. K. Guy, Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays, Vol. 3, Natick, MA: AK Peters, 2003.
R. K. Guy, "Twenty Questions Concerning Conway's Sylver Coinage," American Mathematical Monthly, 83(8), 1976 pp. 634–637.
Permanent Citation
"Sylver Coinage"
http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/SylverCoinage/
Wolfram Demonstrations Project
Published: March 7 2011