Spring 2025 MTCA Workshop #3

Thursday, March 27, 2025

6-8 pm

PMA 12.166

Amy Bradford

Firing Chips: The Game of Wealth Distribution on Graphs

In this session, we’ll explore the Chip Firing Game on graphs. We’ll start by placing “chips” (some in debt, some in credit) at the vertices, then allow them to “fire”—redistributing chips among neighbors in hopes of wiping out all debt on the graph. Our main question: under what conditions can the entire graph be freed from debt by a series of allowed moves? Join us as we puzzle our way through concrete examples, discover the key ingredients to making the game winnable, and explore how a pinch of algebraic geometry shows up in this combinatorial playground.

We validate campus parking and provide dinner, and participants earn CPE hours (TEA approved) for this workshop.

Register by noon on 3/26 here. 

Free parking is provided in the Speedway Garage (SWG). Enter the garage on Speedway, between Dean Keaton and 27th street. Pull a ticket when you enter the garage. We will give participants cards to exit. (If the Speedway Garage is full or being used for an event, please park next door in the 27th Street Garage.)