Comments on: John Nash’s Dissertation

By: David Hoopes

David Hoopes — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 17:56:51 +0000

Harold Kuhn, “Nash proved by page 6 of his thesis that every n-person finite non-cooperative game has at least one (Nash) equilibrium point. This is a profile of mixed strategies, one for each player, which is such that no player can improve his payoff by changing his mixed strategy unilaterally….

It is important to recognize that the results that I have enumerated did not respond to some suggestion of von Neumann, nor did they follow work that he had outlined or proposed; rather they were revolutionary new ideas that
ran counter to von Neumann’s theory.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1994/nash-lecture.pdf

By: Peter Klein

Peter Klein — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:37:54 +0000

In case it wasn’t clear, I should point out that Nash’s PhD was awarded in mathematics, not economics!

By: spostrel

spostrel — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 02:10:44 +0000

Wow! I guess I lucked out. That wasn’t anything like my experience. We did have a lot of math, but not too many pure math types among the faculty or the students.

By: Joe Mahoney

Joe Mahoney — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:33:01 +0000

Nash’s dissertation reminded me of one of the two elements of my dissatisfaction with doctoral education in an economics department. I was disappointed in the number of pure mathmaticians who had little intuition about real-world economics, and who often explicitly stated that they had no interest in learning or discussing real-world economics. They were content to stay within their reconstructed logic. A division of labor, yes, but it lacked something important, beyond specialization, namely, .subsequent trade !

The other disappointment was the incredible amount of sneering that went on by faculty (both in the classroom and outside in the halls) toward each other and toward doctoral students. The lack of maturity of these “adults” and the absence of conversational ethics (e.g., do no sneer) was regarded as normal, acceptable behavior. Twenty years later and I still feel resentment. It was science based on fear, repression, intimidation and bullying. Kind of a GNASH equilibrium.

By: En bref… « Rationalité Limitée

En bref… « Rationalité Limitée — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:31:30 +0000

[...] de nouvelles modalités pour partager les profits. On peut aussi trouver la thèse de John Nash (via). Oui oui, une thèse de 32 pages avec une bibliographie de 2 références. Comme quoi, pas besoin [...]

By: Dagens citat | Sänd mina rötter regn

Dagens citat | Sänd mina rötter regn — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:24:05 +0000

[...] Peter Klein om en hyfsat berömd doktorsavhandling: There is no discussion of social-science applications — in fact, no discussion of any applications other than poker. [...]

By: dgerard

dgerard — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:57:13 +0000

Funded by the Atomic Energy Association.

Do they still give any social science grants?