“As Bill Gates tells the story, Warren Buffett once challenged him to a game of dice”
“Buffett’s four dice (call them A, B, C and D) formed a pattern reminiscent of rock-paper-scissors, in which A beats B, B beats C, C beats D and D beats A. Mathematicians say that such a set of dice is “intransitive.””
““It’s not intuitive at all that [intransitive dice] should even exist,” said Brian Conrey, the director of the American Institute of Mathematics (AIM) in San Jose, who wrote an influential paper on the subject in 2013.”
“The recent rash of results got its start about a decade ago, after Conrey attended a gathering for math teachers with a session that covered intransitive dice. “I had no idea that such things could exist,” he said. “I got kind of fascinated by them.””