Summary
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss game theory, the mathematical study of decision-making. First formulated in the 1940s, the discipline entails devising 'games' to simulate situations of conflict or cooperation. It allows researchers to unravel decision-making strategies, and even to establish why certain types of behaviour emerge. Some of the games studied in game theory have become well known outside academia - they include the Prisoner's Dilemma, an intriguing scenario popularised in novels and films, and which has inspired television game shows. Today game theory is seen as a vital tool in such diverse fields as evolutionary biology, economics, computing and philosophy. With:Ian StewartEmeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of WarwickAndrew ColmanProfessor of Psychology at the University of LeicesterRichard BradleyProfessor of Philosophy at the London School of Economics and Political Science.Producer: Thomas Morris.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
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| 0:47.2 | Hello in 1928 a 25 year old Hungarian student gave his first |
| 0:52.3 | public lecture. Its title was on the theory |
| 0:55.2 | of parley games and had explored features of basic board games that fascinated the |
| 0:59.9 | young mathematician. The student's name was John von Neumann and in the next 15 |
| 1:04.6 | years he turned these observations into a new discipline, game theory. |
| 1:08.7 | Von Neumann realized that the apparently trivial decisions made while playing games could be used to study decision-making more broadly. |
| 1:16.0 | Since the early 1950s game theory has flourished it provides a mathematical description of situations in which individuals have to make choices. |
| 1:24.0 | It's been used by economists to study how markets work and also employed by biologists, |
| 1:29.0 | political scientists and software designers. |
| 1:31.0 | And thanks to film and television, game theory scenarios such as The Prisoner's |
| 1:35.5 | dilemma have become familiar outside the realms of academia. With me to discuss game theory, |
| 1:40.9 | I Ian Stewart, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick, |
| 1:45.5 | Andrew Coleman, Professor of Psychology at the University of Leicester, and Richard Bradley, |
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