Posted on 05/02/2014 4:09:01 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The question of how to win at Rock-Paper-Scissors has, believe it or not, plagued mathematicians and game theorists for quite some time. While they previously had devised a theoretical answer to the question, a new experiment by Zhijian Wang at Zhejiang University in China that used real players, has revealed an interesting wrinkle to the original theory.
In the experiment, Zhijian noticed that winning players tended to stick with their winning strategy, while losers tended to switch to the next strategy in the sequence of rock-paper-scissors, following, what he calls, “persistent cyclic flows.”
Here's how it works in practice: Player A and Player B both start by using random strategies. If Player A uses rock and Player B uses paper, Player A loses. In the next round, Player A can assume that Player B will use paper again and should therefore use scissors to win. In the round after that, because Player B lost, Player A can assume that Player B will use the next strategy in the sequence — scissors — and Player A should then use rock, thus winning again.
If you take the game on a theoretical level, the most mathematically sound way to play Rock-Paper-Scissors is by choosing your strategy at random. Because there are three outcomes — a win, a loss, or a tie — and each strategy has one other strategy that it can beat and one other strategy that can beat it, and we don’t care what strategy we win with, it makes the most sense to pick paper exactly 1/3 of the time, rock 1/3 of the time, and scissors 1/3 of the time. This is called the game's Nash equilibrium.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
It’s similar to Tic Tack Toe. A waist of time brought on by boredom. I won’t get into the merits of doing a study on Rock, Paper, Scissors game theory.
Has he figured out how to beat the chicken playing tic tac toe yet?
“Has he figured out how to beat the chicken playing tic tac toe yet?”
Don’t let the chicken go first.
I’m not crazy. My mother had me tested.
I thought it was rock-paper-scissors-match-gun.
Let’s see....scissors cuts paper, rock smashes scissors.
paper smothers rock. Match burns paper but scissors cuts match.....meaning that paper beats gun, and gun beats scissors.
R P S M G
R 0 - + ? ?
P + 0 - - +
S - + 0 + -
M ? + - 0 ?
G ? - + ? 0
Dang, I forget....rock beats either match or gun and loses to the other. If rock beats match then match beats gun.
If rock beats gun then gun beats match.
What the heck is lizard? Is Spock the “live long and prosper” or the Vulcan nerve pinch....that’s close to gun.
“paper disproves Spock”
lol!
It’s from the Big Bang Theory sitcom.
Choosing scissors can get you expelled from school.
So keep choosing paper to bait your enemy into choosing scissors.
Hah...very good. :-)
Mine is from my misspent youth when we got bored from rock-paper-scissors. Although it raises some interesting questions:
How do match and gun fare against lizard and Spock?
Obviously one of each set has to beat one of the other set.
I think gun has to shoot lizard but then Spock vaporizes gun.
Which means that lizard eats match but match burns Spock.
I am thinking that match burns rock....the rock is a lump of coal or something. Which means that rock smashes gun, and gun lights match.
Also it looks like Spock is the Live Long and Prosper sign.
How is lizard formed? Post 25 looks a little too close to rock.
Better story: Spock realizes the gun isn’t real (allusion to the episode Spectre of the Gun).
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