Category: games

n-dimensional and transfinite Nimbers

Published January 8, 2011 by lievenlb

Today, we will expand the game of Nimbers to higher dimensions and do some transfinite Nimber hacking.

In our identification between $\mathbb{F}_{16}^* $ and 15-th roots of unity, the number 8 corresponds to $\mu^6 $, whence $\sqrt{8}=\mu^3=14 $. So, if we add a stone at the diagonal position (14,14) to the Nimbers-position of last time

we get a position of Nim-value 0, that is, winnable for the second player. In fact, this is a universal Nimbers-truth :

Either the 2nd player wins a Nimbers-position, or one can add one stone to the diagonal such that it becomes a 2nd player win.

The proof is elementary : choose a Fermat 2-power such that all stones have coordinates smaller than $2^{2^n} $. If the Nim-value of the position isn’t zero, it corresponds to a unit $\alpha \in \mathbb{F}_{2^{2^n}}^* $. Now,the Frobenius map $x \mapsto x^2 $ is an automorphism of any finite field of characteristic two, so the square root $\sqrt{\alpha} $ also belongs to $\mathbb{F}_{2^{2^n}} $, done!

3-dimensional Nimbers is played in the first octant of the integral lattice $\mathbb{Z}^3 $ by placing a finite number of balls at places $~(a,b,c) \in \mathbb{N}^3 $ with $abc \geq 1 $.

Moves are defined by replacing the rectangular-rule of the two-dimensional version by the cuboid-rule : take a cuboid with faces parallel to the coordinate planes whose corner of maximal distance from the origin is one of the balls in the position. Remove that ball and add new balls to the unoccupied corners and remove balls at occupied corners.

Here, we allow the corner-points to have zero as some of its coordinates, but these balls are considered dead in the game. As in the two-dimensional game, this cuboid-rule encompasses several legal moves depending on the number of corners in the cuboid having zero-coordinates.

Again, it follows by induction that the Nim-value of a ball placed at position $~(a,b,c) $ is equal to the Nim-multiplication $a \otimes b \otimes c $ and we can calculate the Nim-value of a 3-dimensional Nimbers-position by computing in a suitable field $\mathbb{F}_{2^{2^n}} $. (The extension to higher dimensions is now obvious)

Does 3-dimensional Nimbers satisfy the ‘universal truth’, that is, can one make any position a 2nd player win by adding at most one stone to the body-diagonal?

The previous argument fails. As $\mathbb{F}_4^* $ is the cyclic group of order three, the 3rd roots of unity in $\overline{\mathbb{F}_2} $ correspond to the numbers 1,2 and 3, so the map $x \mapsto x^3 $ cannot be a bijection on any of the finite fields $\mathbb{F}_{2^{2^n}} $.

But then, perhaps, a third root is added by going to a larger such field $\mathbb{F}_{2^{2^N}} $? Well, not quite. Take for example 2, then $\sqrt[3]{2} \notin \mathbb{F}_{2^{2^N}} $. (2 has order 3 in $\mathbb{F}_4 $ and so its 3rd root must have order 9, but 9 does not divide any number of the form $2^{2^N}-1 $ as the Fermat-powers mod 9 can only be 4 or 7).

In fact one can show that this also holds for any number not in the image of the cubing-map in some $\mathbb{F}_{2^{2^n}} $ as

$\mathbb{N}={ 0,1,2,\ldots } = \cup_N \mathbb{F}_{2^{2^N}} $

with Nim-addition and multiplication is the quadratic closure of $\mathbb{F}_2 $ (see for example ONAG).

The situation changes if we allow ourself to play transfinite Nimbers, with the same rules as before but now we allow the stone, balls etc. to be placed at points of which the coordinates are not restricted to $\mathbb{N}_+ = \{ 1,2,3,\ldots \} $ but may vary over $[\beta]_+ $ for some ordinal $\beta $ where $[\beta]_+=\{ 1,2,\ldots,\omega,\omega+1,\ldots \} $ is the set of all ordinals smaller than $\beta $.

In transfinite 3-dimensional Nimbers the ‘universal truth’ still holds, provided we play it on a cube of sizes $[\omega^{\omega}]_+ $. In particular we have that $\sqrt[3]{2}=\omega $ by the simplicity rule (see ONAG or the Conway’s nim-arithmetic post)

In general, n-dimensional transfinite Nimbers played on an n-gid of sizes $[\omega^{\omega^{\omega}}]_+ $ satisfies the universal truth : either a position is a 2nd player win or it becomes one by adding one n-ball to a diagonal position! (this follows immediately because $[\omega^{\omega^{\omega}}] $ with Nim-addition and multiplication is isomorphic to the algebraic closure of $\mathbb{F}_2 $).

2-dimensional transfinite Nimbers is still pretty playable. Below a position on a $\omega.2 $-board with stones as positions $~(2,2),(4,\omega),(\omega+2,\omega+3) $ and $~(\omega+4,\omega+1) $

Give a winning move for the first player!

How to play Nimbers?

Published January 7, 2011 by lievenlb

Nimbers is a 2-person game, winnable only if you understand the arithmetic of the finite fields $\mathbb{F}_{2^{2^n}} $ associated to Fermat 2-powers.

It is played on a rectangular array (say a portion of a Go-board, for practical purposes) having a finite number of stones at distinct intersections. Here’s a typical position

The players alternate making a move, which is either

removing one stone, or
moving a stone to a spot on the same row (resp. the same column) strictly to the left (resp. strictly lower), and if there’s already a stone on this spot, both stones are removed, or
adding stones to the empty corners of a rectangle having as its top-right hand corner a chosen stone and removing stones at the occupied corners

Here we illustrate two possible moves from the above position, in the first we add two new stones and remove 2 existing stones, in the second we add three new stones and remove only the top right-hand stone.

As always, the last player able to move wins the game!

Note that Nimbers is equivalent to Lenstra’s ‘turning corners’-game (as introduced in his paper Nim-multiplication or mentioned in Winning Ways Chapter 14, page 473).

If all stones are placed on the left-most column (or on the bottom row) one quickly realizes that this game reduces to classical Nim with Nim-heap sizes corresponding to the stones (for example, the left-most stone corresponds to a heap of size 3).

Nim-addition $n \oplus m $ is defined inductively by

$n \oplus m = mex(n’ \oplus m,n \oplus m’) $

where $n’ $ is any element of ${ 0,1,\ldots,n-1 } $ and $m’ $ any element of ${ 0,1,\ldots,m-1 } $ and where ‘mex’ stands for Minimal EXcluded number, that is the smallest natural number which isn’t included in the set. Alternatively, one can compute $n \oplus m $ buy writing $n $ and $m $ in binary and add these binary numbers without carrying-over. It is well known that a winning strategy for Nim tries to shorten one Nim-heap such that the Nim-addition of the heap-sizes equals zero.

This allows us to play Nimber-endgames, that is, when all the stones have been moved to the left-column or the bottom row.

To evaluate general Nimber-positions it is best to add another row and column, the coordinate axes of the array

and so our stones lie at positions (1,3), (4,7), (6,4), (10,3) and (14,8). In this way all legal moves follow the rectangle-rule when we allow rectangles to contain corners on the added coordinate axes. For example, removing a stone is achieved by taking a rectangle with two sides on the added axes, and, moving a stone to the left (or the bottom) is done by taking a rectangle with one side at the x-axes (resp. the y-axes)

However, the added stones on the coordinate axes are considered dead and may be removed from the game. This observation allows us to compute the Grundy number of a stone at position (m,n) to be

$G(m,n)=mex(G(m’,n’) \oplus G(m’,n) \oplus G(m,n’)~:~0 \leq m’ < m, 0 \leq n’ < n) $

and so by induction these Grundy numbers are equal to the Nim-multiplication $G(m,n) = m \otimes n $ where

$m \otimes n = mex(m’ \otimes n’ \oplus m’ \otimes n \oplus m \otimes n’~:~0 \leq m’ < m, 0 \leq n’ < n) $

Thus, we can evaluate any Nimbers-position with stone-coordinates smaller than $2^{2^n} $ by calculating in a finite field using the identification (as for example in the odd Knights of the round table-post) $\mathbb{F}_{2^{2^n}} = \{ 0,1,2,\ldots,2^{2^n}-1 \} $

For example, when all stones lie in a 15×15 grid (as in the example above), all calculations can be performed using

Here, we’ve identified the non-zero elements of $\mathbb{F}_{16} $ with 15-th roots of unity, allowing us to multiply, and we’ve paired up couples $(n,n \oplus 1) $ allowing u to reduce nim-addition to nim-multiplication via

$n \oplus m = (n \otimes \frac{1}{m}) \otimes (m \oplus 1) $

In particular, the stone at position (14,8) is equivalent to a Nim-heap of size $14 \otimes 8=10 $. The nim-value of the original position is equal to 8

Suppose your opponent lets you add one extra stone along the diagonal if you allow her to start the game, where would you have to place it and be certain you will win the game?

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Seating the first few thousand Knights

Published February 3, 2010 by lievenlb

The Knight-seating problems asks for a consistent placing of n-th Knight at an odd root of unity, compatible with the two different realizations of the algebraic closure of the field with two elements.
The first identifies the multiplicative group of its non-zero elements with the group of all odd complex roots of unity, under complex multiplication. The second uses Conway’s ‘simplicity rules’ to define an addition and multiplication on the set of all ordinal numbers.

The odd Knights of the round table-problem asks for a specific one-to-one correspondence between two realizations of ‘the’ algebraic closure $\overline{\mathbb{F}_2} $ of the field of two elements.

The first identifies the multiplicative group of its non-zero elements with the group of all odd complex roots of unity, under complex multiplication. The addition on $\overline{\mathbb{F}_2} $ is then recovered by inducing an involution on the odd roots, pairing the one corresponding to x to the one corresponding to x+1.

The second uses Conway’s ‘simplicity rules’ to define an addition and multiplication on the set of all ordinal numbers. Conway proves in ONAG that this becomes an algebraically closed field of characteristic two and that $\overline{\mathbb{F}_2} $ is the subfield of all ordinals smaller than $\omega^{\omega^{\omega}} $. The finite ordinals (the natural numbers) form the quadratic closure of $\mathbb{F}_2 $.

On the natural numbers the Conway-addition is binary addition without carrying and Conway-multiplication is defined by the properties that two different Fermat-powers $N=2^{2^i} $ multiply as they do in the natural numbers, and, Fermat-powers square to its sesquimultiple, that is $N^2=\frac{3}{2}N $. Moreover, all natural numbers smaller than $N=2^{2^{i}} $ form a finite field $\mathbb{F}_{2^{2^i}} $. Using distributivity, one can write down a multiplication table for all 2-powers.

The Knight-seating problems asks for a consistent placing of n-th Knight $K_n $ at an odd root of unity, compatible with the two different realizations of $\overline{\mathbb{F}_2} $. Last time, we were able to place the first 15 Knights as below, and asked where you would seat $K_{16} $

$K_4 $ was placed at $e^{2\pi i/15} $ as 4 was the smallest number generating the ‘Fermat’-field $\mathbb{F}_{2^{2^2}} $ (with multiplicative group of order 15) subject to the compatibility relation with the generator 2 of the smaller Fermat-field $\mathbb{F}_2 $ (with group of order 15) that $4^5=2 $.

To include the next Fermat-field $\mathbb{F}_{2^{2^3}} $ (with multiplicative group of order 255) consistently, we need to find the smallest number n generating the multiplicative group and satisfying the compatibility condition $n^{17}=4 $. Let’s first concentrate on finding the smallest generator : as 2 is a generator for 1st Fermat-field $\mathbb{F}_{2^{2^1}} $ and 4 a generator for the 2-nd Fermat-field $\mathbb{F}_{2^{2^2}} $ a natural conjecture might be that 16 is a generator for the 3-rd Fermat-field $\mathbb{F}_{2^{2^3}} $ and, more generally, that $2^{2^i} $ would be a generator for the next field $\mathbb{F}_{2^{2^{i+1}}} $.

However, an “exercise” in the 1978-paper by Hendrik Lenstra Nim multiplication asks : “Prove that $2^{2^i} $ is a primitive root in the field $\mathbb{F}_{2^{2^{i+1}}} $ if and only if i=0 or 1.”

I’ve struggled with several of the ‘exercises’ in Lenstra’s paper to the extend I feared Alzheimer was setting in, only to find out, after taking pen and paper and spending a considerable amount of time calculating, that they are indeed merely exercises, when looked at properly… (Spoiler-warning : stop reading now if you want to go through this exercise yourself).

In the picture above I’ve added in red the number $x(x+1)=x^2+1 $ to each of the involutions. Clearly, for each pair these numbers are all distinct and we see that for the indicated pairing they make up all numbers strictly less than 8.

By Conway’s simplicity rules (or by checking) the pair (16,17) gives the number 8. In other words, the equation
$x^2+x+8 $ is an irreducible polynomial over $\mathbb{F}_{16} $ having as its roots in $\mathbb{F}_{256} $ the numbers 16 and 17. But then, 16 and 17 are conjugated under the Galois-involution (the Frobenius $y \mapsto y^{16} $). That is, we have $16^{16}=17 $ and $17^{16}=16 $ and hence $16^{17}=8 $. Now, use the multiplication table in $\mathbb{F}_{16} $ given in the previous post (or compute!) to see that 8 is of order 5 (and NOT a generator). As a consequence, the multiplicative order of 16 is 5×17=85 and so 16 cannot be a generator in $\mathbb{F}_{256} $.
For general i one uses the fact that $2^{2^i} $ and $2^{2^i}+1 $ are the roots of the polynomial $x^2+x+\prod_{j<i} 2^{2^j} $ over $\mathbb{F}_{2^{2^i}} $ and argues as before.

Right, but then what is the minimal generator satisfying $n^{17}=4 $? By computing we see that the pairings of all numbers in the range 16…31 give us all numbers in the range 8…15 and by the above argument this implies that the 17-th powers of all numbers smaller than 32 must be different from 4. But then, the smallest candidate is 32 and one verifies that indeed $32^{17}=4 $ (use the multiplication table given before).

Hence, we must place Knight $K_{32} $ at root $e^{2 \pi i/255} $ and place the other Knights prior to the 256-th at the corresponding power of 32. I forgot the argument I used to find-by-hand the requested place for Knight 16, but one can verify that $32^{171}=16 $ so we seat $K_{16} $ at root $e^{342 \pi i/255} $.

But what about Knight $K_{256} $? Well, by this time I was quite good at squaring and binary representations of integers, but also rather tired, and decided to leave that task to the computer.

If we denote Nim-addition and multiplication by $\oplus $ and $\otimes $, then Conway’s simplicity results in ONAG establish a field-isomorphism between $~(\mathbb{N},\oplus,\otimes) $ and the field $\mathbb{F}_2(x_0,x_1,x_2,\ldots ) $ where the $x_i $ satisfy the Artin-Schreier equations

$x_i^2+x_i+\prod_{j < i} x_j = 0 $

and the i-th Fermat-field $\mathbb{F}_{2^{2^i}} $ corresponds to $\mathbb{F}_2(x_0,x_1,\ldots,x_{i-1}) $. The correspondence between numbers and elements from these fields is given by taking $x_i \mapsto 2^{2^i} $. But then, wecan write every 2-power as a product of the $x_i $ and use the binary representation of numbers to perform all Nim-calculations with numbers in these fields.

Therefore, a quick and dirty way (and by no means the most efficient) to do Nim-calculations in the next Fermat-field consisting of all numbers smaller than 65536, is to use sage and set up the field $\mathbb{F}_2(x_0,x_1,x_2,x_3) $ by

R.< x,y,z,t > =GF(2)[]
S.< a,b,c,d >=R.quotient((x^2+x+1,y^2+y+x,z^2+z+x*y,t^2+t+x*y*z))

To find the smallest number generating the multiplicative group and satisfying the additional compatibility condition $n^{257}=32 $ we have to find the smallest binary number $i_1i_2 \ldots i_{16} $ (larger than 255) satisfying

(i1*a*b*c*t+i2*b*c*t+i3*a*c*t+i4*c*t+i5*a*b*t+i6*b*t+
i7*a*t+i8*t+i9*a*b*c+i10*b*c+i11*a*c+i12*c+i13*a*b+
i14*b+i15*a+i16)^257=a*c

It takes a 2.4GHz 2Gb-RAM MacBook not that long to decide that the requested generator is 1051 (killing another optimistic conjecture that these generators might be 2-powers). So, we seat Knight
$K_{1051} $ at root $e^{2 \pi i/65535} $ and can then arrange seatings for all Knight queued up until we reach the 65536-th! In particular, the first Knight we couldn’t place before, that is Knight $K_{256} $, will be seated at root $e^{65826 \pi i/65535} $.

If you’re lucky enough to own a computer with more RAM, or have the patience to make the search more efficient and get the seating arrangement for the next Fermat-field, please drop a comment.

I’ll leave you with another Lenstra-exercise which shouldn’t be too difficult for you to solve now : “Prove that $x^3=2^{2^i} $ has three solutions in $\mathbb{N} $ for each $i \geq 2 $.”

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