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"The Beautiful Mind" Turns 80

"The special commodity or medium that we call money has a long and interesting history. And since we are so dependent on our use of it and so much controlled and motivated by the wish to have more of it or not to lose what we have we may become irrational in thinking about it and fail to be able to reason about it as if about a technology, such as radio, to be used more or less efficiently..." -- John F. Nash, lecture at CII in Mumbai, Feb 2007
IF THE WORLD IS CONSIDERED A "CLOSED SYSTEM", deeming it a Zero-sum game, Nash Equilibrium could certainly offer a different meaning to the notion of money, and thus, to the word richness or net-worth and the world economy.

[Today, June 13, John F. Nash, Jr. turns 80. A humble tribute to the 1994 Nobel Laureate legend.]

Arguably, the Nash equilibrium is the single game theoretic solution concept that is most frequently applied in economics. In terms of strategy and planning, the equilibrium could be simplified as:
"For any finite, non-cooperative game of two players or more, no player can improve his/her pay-off by unilaterally changing the strategy..."

[Above: Actor Russell Crowe in his Oscar winning portrayal of John Nash in the 2001 Hollywood film A Beautiful Mind.]
  • See also:
  • Go here for Nash's personal home page at Princeton.
  • Go here at Investopedia for the investment perspective of the theory.
  • Photo courtesy: Prof. Lynne Butler.
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