Quote:
Originally Posted by sjastro
Game theory was originally developed by mathematicians as an application to economics but was adopted by both camps of the Cold War to analyse the potential outcomes of various military strategies.
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Hi Steven,
This is not pure coincidence.
Game Theory first hits the big time when John Von Neumann and
Oskar Morgenstern published the seminal 616-page book of the
"Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour" in 1944.
This is the book that originates the term "zero-sum game".
When it was first published it was greeted with reviews that have
been described as extraordinary in their volume and quantity.
Von Neumann had published an earlier paper on the theory of games
in 1928.
In the year "Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour" was
published, Von Neumann was working at Los Alamos on the atomic
bomb.
Later, he was a consultant for the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica,
which was the US think tank for the Cold War.
So it is no coincidence with this connection that Game Theory was
further heavily developed at RAND.
John Neumann was not just a genius, but by numerous accounts of any of the
scientists and mathematicians that ever encountered him during his life,
he is usually described as the smartest person they ever met.