Games

The wonder of two bodies negotiating gravity, without choreography.

Emergence from four simple rules — Conway’s cellular automaton, 1970.

The embodied learning of patterns and rhythm — among the oldest wonders one can hold.

Combinatorial play — Euler’s eighteenth-century squares met by the contemporary puzzle.

The contemplative wonder of taking the certainty of death seriously.

After Borges — a single point in which all other points are seen.

An ancient mechanical computer recovered from a Roman shipwreck off Antikythera.

The wonder of cooperation evolving from defection — Axelrod’s tournaments and after.

The classical recursion puzzle — three pegs, n disks, 2ⁿ − 1 moves.

The wonder of impossibility — Condorcet, Arrow, and the limits of collective choice.