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Virus Versus Mankind

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Computers and Games (CG 2000)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2063))

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Abstract

We define a two-player virus game played on a finite cyclic digraph G=(V,E). Each vertex is either occupied by a single virus, or is unoccupied.A move consists of transplanting a virus from some u into a selected neighborhood N(u) of u, while devouring every virus in N(u), and replicating in N(u), i.e., placing a virus on all vertices of N(u) where there wasn’t any virus. The player first killing all the virus wins, and the opponent loses. If there is no last move, the outcome is a draw. Giving a minimum of the underlying theory, we exhibit the nature of the games on hand of examples. The 3-fold motivation for exploring these games stems from complexity considerations in combinatorial game theory, extending the hitherto 0-player and solitaire cellular automata games to two-player games, and the theory of linear error correcting codes.

Humanity is but a passing episode in the eternal life of the virus

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 76100, Israel

    Aviezri S. Fraenkel

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  1. Aviezri S. Fraenkel
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

    Tony Marsland

  2. Future University - Hakodate, Hakodate, Hokkaido, Japan

    Ian Frank

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© 2001 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Fraenkel, A.S. (2001). Virus Versus Mankind. In: Marsland, T., Frank, I. (eds) Computers and Games. CG 2000. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2063. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45579-5_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45579-5_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-43080-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45579-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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