Monday, May 5, 2008

How good is your game (theory)?

The game theory is a that first created by John von Neuman and Oskar Morgenstern in the 1940s' but made famous by John Nash (watch "A Beautiful Mind", based on John Nash) in the 1950s' as the basis of creation for the modern field of Game Theory. The theory, through the use of deep mathematics and interactive models, tries to predict outcomes in complex circumstance and situations. Some applications of this theory can be seen in preparing business negotiations, analyzing future market conditions, strategic decision making, and assessing the viability of a new venture, business model, program, project, product, service or technology. But the hang up with the theory is that assumptions need to be made. In other words, a guess with a university education. The assumptions have to be made to simplify the real world because it is too complext for the theory to work propertly and with any type of precision. So if it