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:
“Life is a game in which the rules are constantly changing; nothing spoils a game more than those who take it seriously. Adultery? Phooey! You should never subjugate yourself to another nor seek the subjugation of someone else to yourself. If you follow that Crispian principle you will be able to say “Phooey,” too, instead of reaching for your gun when you fancy yourself betrayed.”
—Quentin Crisp (b. 1908)
“The struggle for existence holds as much in the intellectual as in the physical world. A theory is a species of thinking, and its right to exist is coextensive with its power of resisting extinction by its rivals.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)