In 2012, at a gaming convention, a board game designer challenged mathematician Eric Harshbarger to create dice that could determine the starting player without the chance of a tie. Harshbarger, a senior lecturer at Auburn University, embraced the problem as an intriguing mathematical puzzle.
After years of collaboration with computer scientists and mathematicians worldwide, Harshbarger and his team developed a set of four 12-sided dice to resolve the issue for two, three, or four players efficiently. However, devising a solution for five players proved to be more complex.
While considering dice with an impractical number of sides, a breakthrough came when a researcher from Australia proposed using five 120-sided dice. Subsequently, a Canadian software engineer, Paul Meyer, introduced a solution using five 60-sided dice, a discovery that excited Harshbarger.
The newly designed dice, known as the Go First Dice, ensure a fair outcome for determining the starting player in board games. Despite some skepticism about their practicality, Harshbarger affirms the dice’s mathematical fairness.
The research team continues to explore possibilities for improving the dice design, including investigating if fewer sides could work for five players and potentially expanding the concept to accommodate six players. Harshbarger acknowledges the unpredictability of the process but finds the mathematical challenge fascinating and worth pursuing.
