Dice

Dice, probably originally knucklebones, are mentioned in the Rig Veda, a collection of sacred hymns compiled in the Indus Valley between 1500 and 1200 BC, while the Greeks sometimes attributed their invention to the hero Palamedes, said to have created them to entertain his companions during the siege of Troy in the 12th century BC. From the Arabic “az-ahar,” which passed through Spain (“azar”), the French word hasard appeared in the 12th century to designate a “game of dice.” Published in 1987, “God Does Not Play Dice” is the title of an essay by neurobiologist Henri Laborit, borrowing its name from a remark made by Albert Einstein at the Solvay physics conference in 1927.