ESP Biography

The mathematics of game theory provides a useful theoretical framework for life: know your (and everyone else's) goals and act to attain them. But the theory misses two crucial points: 1) Real life is complex and the best laid plans often go awry 2) There's something *felt* about having "skin in the game" We address both points in the obvious way: we'll play games! Together! For prizes! The course is designed to teach game theory via the intuition of actually playing games, avoiding the math and technicality of a more rigorous introduction. Come to this class if you want to experience game theory from the inside!

The Large Number Game is played as follows: 1) Each player uniquely defines a natural number using numbers, words, or symbols. 2) The player who defines the largest number wins! Sounds simple, right? Well, kind of. If you know your opponent's number, it's pretty easy. But if not, and if your opponent knows what they're doing, then there's trouble. 10^10^100 doesn't even begin to describe it - every number we'll see 15 minutes into class will be larger than the number of atoms in the universe raised to the millionth power. On our journey through the upper reaches of the number line, we'll encounter a surprising diversity of mathematics, culminating in an, uh, unorthodox solution to the halting problem. Come to this class to play a fun game, to learn some cool math, or just to see some big numbers!