Description
Book SynopsisIn this richly illustrated book, Dr Jorma Kyppoe explores the history of board games dating back to Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and China. He provides a description of the evolution and various interpretations of chess. Furthermore, the book offers the study of the old Celtic and Viking board games and the old Hawaiian board game Konane, as well as a new hypothesis about the interpretation of the famous Cretan Phaistos Disk. Descriptions of several chess variations, including some highlights of the game theory and tiling in different dimensions, are followed by a multidimensional symmetrical n-person strategy game model, based on chess. Final chapter (Concluding remarks) offers the new generalizations of the Euler-Poincare's Characteristic, Pi and Fibonacci sequence.
Trade Review"The second part is a central discussion about history of board games and chess variations. The content is not about a mathematical analysis of the games but really about the games themselves: pictures of the board and pieces, rules, strategies, variations and interpretations."; zbMATH; "… the author has produced compelling results that are of extremely high quality and the heart of the book (Chapters 4-8) should be of interest to any mathematician who is interested in chess and its history."; Mathematical Reviews Clippings;
Table of ContentsIntroduction; Game Theory and N-Person Games; Tiling in Different Dimensions; The History and Prehistory of Chess; Later Chess Variations; Basic Model of Universal Chess; Extensions of Universal Chess; Symmetric N-person Chess; Concluding Remarks; Summary;
