Game Theory
John Nash proved that games with several players have a stable solution provided that coalitions between players are not allowed. He won the Nobel prize for economics for this important result which extended von Neumann's theory of zero-sum games. Such a stable strategy is called a Nash equilibrium.
If cooperation between players is allowed, then the game is more complex. Many concepts have been developed to analyze such games. While these have had some partial success in the fields of economics, politics and conflict, no good general theory has yet been developed.
In quantum game theory, it has been found that the introduction of quantum information into multiplayer games allows a new type of equilibrium strategy which is not found in traditional games. The entanglement of players's choices can have the effect of a contract by preventing players from profiting from betrayal.
Read more about this topic: Multiplayer Game
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)
“Don’t confuse hypothesis and theory. The former is a possible explanation; the latter, the correct one. The establishment of theory is the very purpose of science.”
—Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)