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Game Theory

Duration:
45 minutes
First broadcast:
Thursday 10 May 2012

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 Stewart
Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick

Andrew Colman
Professor of Psychology at the University of Leicester

Richard Bradley
Professor of Philosophy at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Producer: Thomas Morris.

  • FURTHER READING

    Ken G. Binmore, ‘Game Theory: A Very Short Introduction’ (Oxford University Press, 2008)

    Colin F. Camerer, ‘Behavioral Game Theory: Experiments in Strategic Interaction’ (Princeton University Press, 2003)

    Andrew M. Colman, ‘Game Theory and its Applications in the Social and Biological Sciences’ (Routledge, 1995)

    Morton Davis, ‘Game Theory: A Nontechnical Introduction’ (Dover, 1997)

    Robert Duncan Luce & Howard Raiffa, ‘Games and Decisions: Introduction and Critical Survey’ (Dover Publications, 1989)

    William Poundstone, ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma: John Von Neumann, Game Theory and the Puzzle of the Bomb’ (Anchor Books, 1993)

    Karl Sigmund, ‘Games of Life’ (Oxford University Press, 1993)

    John Maynard Smith, ‘Evolution and the Theory of Games’ (Cambridge University Press, 1982)

    John Maynard Smith, ‘Games, Sex, and Evolution’ (Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1988)

    Ian Stewart, ‘Mathematics of Life’ (Profile, 2011)

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