The Games People play..
Many thanks to Blockbuster for
1. The End of Late fees
2. The Monthly pass, courtesy of which I have seen almost every A,B,C-Grade movies ever dished out by Hollywood.
Infact, I'm in to movie-reruns now. I've been picking up movies which i've previously seen and enjoyed, seen but need to refresh the lead role's punch lines, tried to see but slept through. I'd picked up 'Beautiful mind' on one such occasion. As most of you know, its a brilliant movie, and I still believe Russell crowe deserved an Oscar for his acting in this movie than for his portrayal of Maximus in Gladiator(BTW..I loved the movie). Getting back to the movie, its about the legendary John Nash, whom I will always remember more for his letter of his recommendation, than for his brillant work in game theory.
Well, who wouldnt want a letter of recommendation that just had "This man is a genius". Mine went 'I know Sunil for the last.....hardworking,sincere..........admit him with aid...yeah with AID".
OK, absurd as it may sound, I was really 'inspired' by the movie, and I decided to take up a course in Game Theory. My decision to watch a movie over deciding courses to register for the semester had, as Nash would have put it, 'paidoff'.The course itself is really interesting and to top it, its being handled by one of the best Professors that I've ever had.(Prof.Wayne Bialas). Here's are some interesting titbits from his class.
- Game theory is so popular thanks to a) Von Neumann b) John Nash c) Robert McNamara d) 'Beautiful Mind' - the movie and e) The other (un)fortunate mathematicians who choose to work on it.
- Robert McNamara's claim to fame : Advised the Kennedy Govt to increase the number of nuclear war heads. This, he predicted, would also encourage the soviets to increase their warheads thereby neutralizing the nuclear power of both countries. The argument being, If I had one nuclear war head, and you had none, I would be at an advantage. But if we both had 100 Warheads, then we're better off not using them.
- Unfortunately, the above logic still holds true. And this implies nuclear disarmament will be an unrealized dream.
Well, I'll leave it at that. BTW, for the movie buff, here's a list of movies which use game theory.
1. The End of Late fees
2. The Monthly pass, courtesy of which I have seen almost every A,B,C-Grade movies ever dished out by Hollywood.
Infact, I'm in to movie-reruns now. I've been picking up movies which i've previously seen and enjoyed, seen but need to refresh the lead role's punch lines, tried to see but slept through. I'd picked up 'Beautiful mind' on one such occasion. As most of you know, its a brilliant movie, and I still believe Russell crowe deserved an Oscar for his acting in this movie than for his portrayal of Maximus in Gladiator(BTW..I loved the movie). Getting back to the movie, its about the legendary John Nash, whom I will always remember more for his letter of his recommendation, than for his brillant work in game theory.
Well, who wouldnt want a letter of recommendation that just had "This man is a genius". Mine went 'I know Sunil for the last.....hardworking,sincere..........admit him with aid...yeah with AID".
OK, absurd as it may sound, I was really 'inspired' by the movie, and I decided to take up a course in Game Theory. My decision to watch a movie over deciding courses to register for the semester had, as Nash would have put it, 'paidoff'.The course itself is really interesting and to top it, its being handled by one of the best Professors that I've ever had.(Prof.Wayne Bialas). Here's are some interesting titbits from his class.
- Game theory is so popular thanks to a) Von Neumann b) John Nash c) Robert McNamara d) 'Beautiful Mind' - the movie and e) The other (un)fortunate mathematicians who choose to work on it.
- Robert McNamara's claim to fame : Advised the Kennedy Govt to increase the number of nuclear war heads. This, he predicted, would also encourage the soviets to increase their warheads thereby neutralizing the nuclear power of both countries. The argument being, If I had one nuclear war head, and you had none, I would be at an advantage. But if we both had 100 Warheads, then we're better off not using them.
- Unfortunately, the above logic still holds true. And this implies nuclear disarmament will be an unrealized dream.
Well, I'll leave it at that. BTW, for the movie buff, here's a list of movies which use game theory.
posted by ledsuki at 2:10 AM
1 Comments:
Hey the comment by Robert McNamara's is a direct implication of a theory called Prisonner's Dilemma and to be precise its called Altruistic Prisoner's Dilemma, even though one dont see any shades of cooperation in the comment by Robert McNamara...
Before I explain how the theory and the guy's comment are linked, let me confess that "A Beautiful Mind" is one movie that has provoked the interest in me to look forward to pursue education in an American University as prestigious as The Princeton! Ok back to biz...
The scenario which led to the theory is as follows... The cops once arrested two guys who were found at a spot where a crime has been committed. The police now have to find who was the exact criminal of the two or whether both of them... They dont have any other trace of evidence. So they decided to keep each of the accused in a seperate cell and started interrogating. The go to each of the accused and inquire about the other. Now following are the scenarios that can occur...
1. Both of the accused gives a good feedback about the other leaving the police with no clue. In this case both of the accused are said to cooperate with each other and they will be acquitted because of lack of evidence with the police.
2. One of the guy gives a good feedback about the other but the other one defects this guy by confessing to the police that the other was the criminal. Now the police will detain the guy who has cooperated.
3. Both of them defect each other and the police detain
both the guys...
So Robert McNamara dont wanna be in scenario 2. He can neither be in scenario 1 as the coldwar has already started. So he opted for scenarion 3 by increasing the nuclear war heads...
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