In this series of posts, Katie will be going on about some of her favourite board games and card games, and some of the interesting mathematics to be found there. If you’d like the chance to play a mathematical board game, why not find or start a Maths Arcade at university, or join your local MathsJam.
6 Nimmt! (German: Take 6!) is a card-based game which involves a hand of numbered cards, each also containing a number of cow heads. The cards are played in rounds, and during each round everyone chooses a card to play, they’re played in order, and you may find yourself having to take cards. The aim of the game is to end with the fewest cow heads.
Some of the best mathematical teasers are those which originate in a real-world problem – although the problem for pure mathematicians is that that happens much less often than it does for applied mathematicians, who are presented with interesting real-world problems all the time. That’s why it’s especially nice when a more pure one pops up, and that’s exactly what happened to mathematician Jacob E Goodman, back in 1975.
