Game Theory
Accounts of the success of operations research during the war, publication in 1944 of John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern's Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (Von Neumann & Morgenstern 1944) on the use of game theory for developing and analyzing optimal strategies for military and other uses, and publication of John William's The Compleat Strategyst, a popular exposition of game theory, led to a greater appreciation of mathematical analysis of human behavior.
But game theory had a little crisis: it could not find a strategy for a simple game called "The Prisoner's Dilemma" (PD) where two players have the option to cooperate for mutual gain, but each also takes a risk of being suckered.
Read more about this topic: Evolution Of Cooperation
Famous quotes containing the words game and/or theory:
“Wild Bill was indulging in his favorite pastime of a friendly game of cards in the old No. 10 saloon. For the second time in his career, he was sitting with his back to an open door. Jack McCall walked in, shot him through the back of the head, and rushed from the place, only to be captured shortly afterward. Wild Bill’s dead hand held aces and eights, and from that time on this has been known in the West as “the dead man’s hand.””
—State of South Dakota, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Freud was a hero. He descended to the “Underworld” and met there stark terrors. He carried with him his theory as a Medusa’s head which turned these terrors to stone.”
—R.D. (Ronald David)