I know this sounds crazy. Even stupid. But Adidas did design a cubic ball, called brazuca, for the 2014 World Cup. And, yet, this cubic ball is rounder than any previous ball in football History. How is it possible? This article explains it.
Back then, I simulated the outcome of the 2006 World Cup, based on a modelling of football games. This article explains this model and presents its results.
Whenever you need to make a group of people interact, you are designing a mechanism. If you want to achieve a good interaction, you need to make sure your mechanism is well designed. In this article, I'll show you main features of mechanisms through various examples. I'll also talk about a great mathematical tool for mechanism design: the revelation principle.