Mathematicians say these 60-sided dice are the fairest in the world. Designing them took 15 years.
A team of mathematicians discovered that five 60-sided dice, arranged with exactly the right numbers, can determine a perfectly fair turn order for any group of players, with zero chance of a tie.
In 2010, board game designer James Ernest and mathematician Eric Harshbarger pondered a question: Could dice be designed so that any number of players could roll and have equal chances of going first? This led to a 15-year quest to find the fairest dice possible. Harshbarger eventually found a set of five 60-sided dice with numbers ranging from 1 to 300, engraved on each face without repetition.
These dice, known as hexecontahedrons, are carved from different woods and on display in Auburn University's new mathematics building. The challenge lay in arranging the numbers on each die so that the probability of any player going first or finishing in any order was equal, regardless of how many players were involved. This property, called permutation fairness, was crucial in creating the set.
After years of mathematical exploration and collaboration, Harshbarger discovered a solution using a program designed by Canadian software engineer Paul Meyer. The final result is a set of five dice that meet all fairness criteria and can be manufactured for board gamers to use.
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