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HACKENBUSH: a window to a new world of math

Owen Maitzen · explainer · Watch on YouTube

Recreational & visual mathProbability & game theoryPure mathematics

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.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN recommends it as an accessible, well-visualized entry point to Hackenbush, surreal numbers and their link to Nim.

  • 3 people recommended it
  • 3 different months
  • 1 strong recommendations
  • first 2022, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “I found the following video extremely useful and well-visualized”

    Well-visualized explanation of Hackenbush and its relation to Nim.

    lblume, 2025-02 · Strong recommendation · in “Transfinite NIM (the game, not the programming language)”

  2. “An accessible intro”

    Accessible intro to Hackenbush and surreal numbers.

    rini17, 2022-09 · Recommendation · in “Indefinite and Fictitious Numbers”

  3. “HACKENBUSH: a window to a new world of math”

    Owen Maitzen's Hackenbush video, relevant to the blog post on numbers.

    nthingtohide, 2024-12 · Recommendation · in “Numbers Are Leaves”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: hackenbush, surreal numbers, nim, game theory, math visualization

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