HACKENBUSH: a window to a new world of math
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN recommends it as an accessible, well-visualized entry point to Hackenbush, surreal numbers and their link to Nim.
What it is
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.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2022 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec lblume · 2025-02 · on “Transfinite NIM (the game, not the programming language)”
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]
Recommends rini17 · 2022-09 · on “Indefinite and Fictitious Numbers”
All numbers are fictitious :) Though, I think "games" built on surreal numbers are akin to these. [LINK] An accessible intro: [this video]
Recommends nthingtohide · 2024-12 · on “Numbers Are Leaves”
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]