Game Theory: How to Play and How it’s Used
By Shawn Buchanan
Game Theory is used to study situations where players choose different actions in order to maximize their returns. It first emerged in 1928 in a series of papers written by John von Neumann. Neumann’s work culminated in his book, The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. Since then, Game Theory has evolved and become a useful tool in many different branches of science, including economics, biology, psychology, and many others. It has been used to model species development through natural selection. In many of the "games", rational self-interest hurts everyone else, so Game Theory also has applications in Philosophy and ethics.
We will explore the basic assumptions of game theory, the two different forms of games, the different types of games, and how matrices are used in game theory. The main focus of this discussion will be the normal form games. We will look at how these games are played using examples such as The Prisoner’s Dilemma. We will also take a look at how Game Theory is applied to the different branches of science and why it is useful to them.
Reference:
-
Game Theory Introduction and Applications
By Graham Romp
-
Game Theory Evolving
By Herbert Gintis
-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Theory