Dec 3, 2011

"There's no point in being nuts...


...if you can't have a little fun."

Quote attributed to mathematician John Nash, who was the biographical subject of A Beautiful Mind...

5 comments:

Growling Gecko said...

I thin all mat riders must have beautiful minds!

Growling Gecko said...

Think! I meant to say think!

David from Philly said...

Likewise, surfers in a crowded lineup might want to ponder Nash's theory of equilibrium.

Paul Gross said...

"In game theory, Nash Equilibrium (named after John Forbes Nash, who proposed it) is a solution concept of a game involving two or more players, in which each player is assumed to know the equilibrium strategies of the other players, and no player has anything to gain by changing only his own strategy unilaterally[1]:14. If each player has chosen a strategy and no player can benefit by changing his or her strategy while the other players keep theirs unchanged, then the current set of strategy choices and the corresponding payoffs constitute a Nash equilibrium.

Stated simply, Amy and Phil are in Nash equilibrium if Amy is making the best decision she can, taking into account Phil's decision, and Phil is making the best decision he can, taking into account Amy's decision. Likewise, a group of players is in Nash equilibrium if each one is making the best decision that he or she can, taking into account the decisions of the others. However, Nash equilibrium does not necessarily mean the best payoff for all the players involved; in many cases, all the players might improve their payoffs if they could somehow agree on strategies different from the Nash equilibrium: e.g., competing businesses forming a cartel in order to increase their profits."

Piskian said...

G and I often "form a cartel" on waves!