Game Theory

GameTheory is a complex field of study that's explored most often in both the realms mathematics and business (especially economics). GameTheory studies strategic situations, in which the key principle is interdependence. It's a formal method of analyzing four main characteristics of such situations (in the model of a game):

• group -- there is more than one player, where "player" is defined as a decision-maker
• interaction -- whatever one player does directly affects at least one other player
• strategic -- an individual player accounts for interdependence in deciding on his/her actions
• rational -- each player will choose the best action, accounting for strategy

Paraphrased definition from Prajit K. Dutta's Strategies and Games, an excellent introduction to GameTheory (which assumes a more economic than heavy math background, but you'll still need some calculus and statistics to understand the math bits). Other good GameTheory books include:

Theory of Games and Economic Behavior by JohnVonNeumann and Oskar Morgenstern

ISBN 0691003629 A classic

Differential Games by Rufus Issacs (lots of math)

ISBN 0486406822

Two-Person Game Theory by Anatol Rapoport

ISBN 0486406865 Another good beginner text

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GameTheory has a lot of neat uses (to me anyway), especially in modeling outcomes and probability distributions of uncertain events given the characteristics above. This includes things such as games, economics, war, and evolution. At the end of the day, however, it is, fundamentally, JustaModel?, like EuclideanMath? and everything else.

It may be perhaps somewhat interesting to note that Rapoport also edited an edition of Clausewitz's On War.

-- DanMoniz

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An offshoot of GameTheory is EvolutionaryGameTheory?, which explores why the 'rational' choice/strategy is not always the best choice on a longer timescale.

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CategoryGame