Undergraduate Research & Scholarships

Zhengzheng Hu L&S Sciences

Connecting the Game of Chomp and Young Tableaux

The Game of Chomp (also called Northeast) is a two-player game on a rectangular chocolate bar consisting of m-by-n squares. Players take turns eating chocolate squares on the board. If a player eats a square, they must eat all squares lying above (north) and to the right (east) of that piece. Whichever player eats the lowest left corner chocolate square (poisoned) loses (Gale). For my project, I am trying to apply Sprague-Grundy value from Game Theory and Young diagrams from Algebra to characterize winning strategies for Chomp or provide evidence of the complexity of solving general m-by-n Chomp.

Message To Sponsor

The game of chomp is absolutely fascinating to me. I am very curious about how such a simple game with no randomness and hidden information, contains complex solving. SURF and the Pergo Foundation give me the opportunity to fully dedicate myself to exploring this game and I could not ask more. On the other hand, this is a great opportunity for me to enhance my problem-solving skills, experience research, and look for interests of further studies.
Major: Applied Mathematics, Statistics
Mentor: Kenneth Ribet, Mathematics
Sponsor: Pergo
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