So here, maybe, just maybe, we have found the lost box of tricks with the hidden secrets that will improve our game skills. After all, we are all frustrated experts in war strategy and everyone is searching for a solution to the conflict in the Middle East. Add to this the fact that the basic terminology of game theory includes words like ”strategy” and ”solution,” and it becomes a real celebration. We all play board games, social games, political games and other games. Who would be interested in this theory if it were called ”A Collection of Models of Rational Decision-Making in Interactive Situations”?ĥThe word ”game” has a mischievous, youthful and accessible ring to it. Game theoryĤWhoever invented the name ”game theory” was also a genius in public relations. I was not merely shy I was afraid to speak with someone who was crazy. He was a solitary figure in the cafeteria, which looked like a dining hall in an Oxford college. My host looked toward one of the tables, lowered his eyes and whispered to me: ”That’s John Nash.” The man whose name rolled off my tongue more often than any other name in my professional life and whose work was the basis for the bargaining model I was about to present that day, was hunched over the table, wrapped in a long and shabby coat, wearing worn-out sneakers, and not looking at anyone. ![]() Before the lecture, I asked my host to take me to the cafeteria and show me this ethereal character. It was hard for me to identify him a lot of weird people roam the lawns at Princeton.ģOne afternoon, I was about to give a lecture in the Economics Department. They said there was one student who had dared to approach him and speak with him, and that he had readily helped the student. It was rumored that he had an account on the university’s computer and was busy with mysterious calculations. This crazy person could be seen riding back and forth on the ”Dinky,” a short rail line connecting Princeton Junction to the campus. I heard from other students that a crazy genius would roam around the campus, sitting for hours in the cafeteria with a pile of computer printouts in front of him, reading newspapers he collected from abandoned tables. Autumn 1980ĢI arrived at Princeton for the first time. And if I had asked myself who Nash was, I probably would have guessed he was an English intellectual who died at the beginning of the twentieth century. I must have realized that the word Nash was connected to a person. ![]() If the concept of equilibrium were named Cournot (who had already thought of this concept in a narrow context in 1838) or ”Alpha Equilibrium” or even ”Smiley,” it would really have made no difference to me. For me, Nash was then just a short and catchy adjective attached to two abstract concepts that are central to game theory: Nash Equilibrium and the Nash Bargaining Solution. ![]() I was a student at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and I came across Nash in an introductory Game Theory course.
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