Do you like puzzles? Mathematical puzzles are a form of recreational mathematics, but do not let their simplicity fool you! In this seminar, we will focus on a subset of these puzzles, where students will not just play but work to describe algorithms that implement their natural strategy. Each season will focus on a particular genre to provide some structure and encourage exploration.
This document is an introduction to our first expedition, and you are encouraged to think about the questions before our first meeting. It also contains some additional expeditions that we may undertake throughout the year.
Many of the puzzles and games in this seminar are known as “NP-Hard”, meaning that algorithms that give perfect solutions will take about as long as simply checking every possible play. This means that getting “good” at solving them is something that is hopelessly out of reach for Artificial Intelligence and a fertile playground for enhancing Human Intelligence.
With some programming experience, students can implement different strategies and let them playout. The challenge of encoding their strategy into an algorithm, however successful they are, brings them to experience the raw challenge of these puzzles. There are active communities competing to develop efficient algorithms, so joining and contributing to them is a possible destination for interested participants.