| Search | About | Preferences | Interact | Help | |
| 150 million books. 1 search engine. | ||
› Find signed collectible books: 'Beautiful Mind: A Biography of John Forbes Nash, Jr., Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, 1994'
Stories of famously eccentric Princetonians abound--such as that of chemist Hubert Alyea, the model for The Absent-Minded Professor, or Ralph Nader, said to have had his own key to the library as an undergraduate. Or the "Phantom of Fine Hall," a figure many students had seen shuffling around the corridors of the math and physics building wearing purple sneakers and writing numerology treatises on the blackboards. The Phantom was John Nash, one of the most brilliant mathematicians of his generation, who had spiraled into schizophrenia in the 1950s. His most important work had been in game theory, which by the 1980s was underpinning a large part of economics. When the Nobel Prize committee began debating a prize for game theory, Nash's name inevitably came up--only to be dismissed, since the prize clearly could not go to a madman. But in 1994 Nash, in remission from schizophrenia, shared the Nobel Prize in economics for work done some 45 years previously.
Economist and journalist Sylvia Nasar has written a biography of Nash that looks at all sides of his life. She gives an intelligent, understandable exposition of his mathematical ideas and a picture of schizophrenia that is evocative but decidedly unromantic. Her story of the machinations behind Nash's Nobel is fascinating and one of very few such accounts available in print (the CIA could learn a thing or two from the Nobel committees). This highly recommended book is indeed "a story about the mystery of the human mind, in three acts: genius, madness, reawakening." --Mary Ellen Curtin [via]
More editions of Beautiful Mind: A Biography of John Forbes Nash, Jr., Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, 1994:
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash'
Stories of famously eccentric Princetonians abound--such as that of chemist Hubert Alyea, the model for The Absent-Minded Professor, or Ralph Nader, said to have had his own key to the library as an undergraduate. Or the "Phantom of Fine Hall," a figure many students had seen shuffling around the corridors of the math and physics building wearing purple sneakers and writing numerology treatises on the blackboards. The Phantom was John Nash, one of the most brilliant mathematicians of his generation, who had spiraled into schizophrenia in the 1950s. His most important work had been in game theory, which by the 1980s was underpinning a large part of economics. When the Nobel Prize committee began debating a prize for game theory, Nash's name inevitably came up--only to be dismissed, since the prize clearly could not go to a madman. But in 1994 Nash, in remission from schizophrenia, shared the Nobel Prize in economics for work done some 45 years previously.
Economist and journalist Sylvia Nasar has written a biography of Nash that looks at all sides of his life. She gives an intelligent, understandable exposition of his mathematical ideas and a picture of schizophrenia that is evocative but decidedly unromantic. Her story of the machinations behind Nash's Nobel is fascinating and one of very few such accounts available in print (the CIA could learn a thing or two from the Nobel committees). This highly recommended book is indeed "a story about the mystery of the human mind, in three acts: genius, madness, reawakening." --Mary Ellen Curtin [via]
More editions of A Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Behavioral Game Theory: Experiments in Strategic Interaction'
More editions of Behavioral Game Theory: Experiments in Strategic Interaction:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Co-Opetition: 1. A Revolutionary Mindset That Redefines Competition and Cooperation; 2. the Game Theory Strategy That's Changing the Game of Business'
More editions of Co-Opetition: 1. A Revolutionary Mindset That Redefines Competition and Cooperation; 2. the Game Theory Strategy That's Changing the Game of Business:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Collective Action'
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Compleat Strategyst: Being a Primer on the Theory of Games of Strategy'
More editions of The Compleat Strategyst: Being a Primer on the Theory of Games of Strategy:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Complete Strategist'
More editions of Complete Strategist:

› Find signed collectible books: 'A Course in Game Theory'
More editions of A Course in Game Theory:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Differential Games: A Mathematical Theory With Applications to Warfare and Pursuit, Control and Optimization'
More editions of Differential Games: A Mathematical Theory With Applications to Warfare and Pursuit, Control and Optimization:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Ender's Game'
In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut--young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.
Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister. Back on Earth, Peter and Valentine forge an intellectual alliance and attempt to change the course of history.
This futuristic tale involves aliens, political discourse on the Internet, sophisticated computer games, and an orbiting battle station. Yet the reason it rings true for so many is that it is first and foremost a tale of humanity; a tale of a boy struggling to grow up into someone he can respect while living in an environment stripped of choices. Ender's Game is a must-read book for science fiction lovers, and a key conversion read for their friends who "don't read science fiction."
Ender's Game won both the Hugo and the Nebula the year it came out. Writer Orson Scott Card followed up this honor with the first-time feat of winning both awards again the next year for the sequel, Speaker for the Dead. --Bonnie Bouman [via]
More editions of Ender's Game:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Ender's Game'
More editions of Ender's Game:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Essential John Nash'
More editions of The Essential John Nash:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Evolution and the Theory of Games'
More editions of Evolution and the Theory of Games:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Evolution of Cooperation'
More editions of The Evolution of Cooperation:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Evolution of the Social Contract'
More editions of Evolution of the Social Contract:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Evolutionary Game Theory'
More editions of Evolutionary Game Theory:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Finite and Infinite Games'
A fascinating meditation on life as a contest of games to be completed and games to be continued--and on what lies beyond winning and losing. [via]
More editions of Finite and Infinite Games:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Fun and Games: A Text on Game Theory'
More editions of Fun and Games: A Text on Game Theory:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Game Theory'
This advanced text introduces the principles of noncooperative game theory - including strategic form games, nash equilibria, subgame perfection, repeated games, and games of incomplete information - in a direct and uncomplicated style that will acquaint students with the broad spectrum of the field while highlighting and explaining what they need to know at any given point. The analytic material is accompanied by many applications, examples, and exercises.the theory of noncooperative games studies the behavior of agents in any situation where each agent's optimal choice may depend on a forecast of the opponents' choices. "noncooperative" refers to choices that are based on the participant's perceived selfinterest. Although game theory has been applied to many fields, fudenberg and tirole focus on the kinds of game theory that have been most useful in the study of economic problems. They also include some applications to political science. The fourteen chapters are grouped in parts that cover static games of complete information, dynamic games of complete information, static games of incomplete information, dynamic games of incomplete information, and advanced topics.drew fudenberg and jean tirole are professors of economics at mit [via]
More editions of Game Theory:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Game Theory: A Critical Introduction'
More editions of Game Theory: A Critical Introduction:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Game Theory: A Critical Text'
In recent years game theory has swept through all of the social sciences. Its practitioners have great designs for it, claiming that it offers an opportunity to unify the social sciences and that it it the natural foundation of a rational theory of society. Game Theory is for those who are intrigued but baffled by these claims, and daunted by the technical demands of most introductions to the subject.
Requiring no more than simple arithmetic, the book:
* Traces the origins of Game Theory and its philosophical premises
* Looks at its implications for the theory of bargaining and social contract theory
* Gives a detailed exposition of all of the major `games' including the famous `prisoner's dilemma'
* Analyses cooperative, non cooperative, repeated, evolutionary and experimental games [via]
More editions of Game Theory: A Critical Text:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Game Theory: A Nontechnical Introduction'
More editions of Game Theory: A Nontechnical Introduction:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict'
Eminently suited to classroom use as well as individual study, Roger Myerson's introductory text provides a clear and thorough examination of the models, solution concepts, results, and methodological principles of noncooperative and cooperative game theory. Myerson introduces, clarifies, and synthesizes the extraordinary advances made in the subject over the past fifteen years, presents an overview of decision theory, and comprehensively reviews the development of the fundamental models: games in extensive form and strategic form, and Bayesian games with incomplete information.
Game Theory will be useful for students at the graduate level in economics, political science, operations research, and applied mathematics. Everyone who uses game theory in research will find this book essential.
[via]More editions of Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Game Theory and Economic Modelling'
This book examines why game theory has become such a popular tool of analysis. It investigates the deficiencies in this methodology and goes on to consider whether its popularity will fade or remain an important tool for economists. The book provides the reader with some basic concepts from noncooperative theory, and then goes on to explore the strengths, weaknesses, and future of the theory as a tool of economic modelling and analysis. All those interested in the applications of game theory to economics, from undergraduates to academics will find this study of particular value. [via]
More editions of Game Theory and Economic Modelling:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Game Theory Evolving: A Problem-Centered Introduction to Modeling Strategic Interaction'
More editions of Game Theory Evolving: A Problem-Centered Introduction to Modeling Strategic Interaction:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Game Theory for Applied Economics'
This book introduces one of the most powerful tools of modern economics to a wide audience: those who will later construct or consume game-theoretic models. Robert Gibbons addresses scholars in applied fields within economics who want a serious and thorough discussion of game theory but who may have found other works overly abstract. Gibbons emphasizes the economic applications of the theory at least as much as the pure theory itself; formal arguments about abstract games play a minor role. The applications illustrate the process of model building--of translating an informal description of a multi-person decision situation into a formal game-theoretic problem to be analyzed. Also, the variety of applications shows that similar issues arise in different areas of economics, and that the same game-theoretic tools can be applied in each setting. In order to emphasize the broad potential scope of the theory, conventional applications from industrial organization have been largely replaced by applications from labor, macro, and other applied fields in economics. The book covers four classes of games, and four corresponding notions of equilibrium: static games of complete information and Nash equilibrium, dynamic games of complete information and subgame-perfect Nash equilibrium, static games of incomplete information and Bayesian Nash equilibrium, and dynamic games of incomplete information and perfect Bayesian equilibrium.
[via]More editions of Game Theory for Applied Economics:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Games and Decisions: Introduction and Critical Survey'

› Find signed collectible books: 'Games and Information: An Introduction to Game Theory'
More editions of Games and Information: An Introduction to Game Theory:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Games of Strategy'
› Find signed collectible books: 'Games People Play'
› Find signed collectible books: 'Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships'
We think were relating to other peoplebut actually were all playing games.
Forty years ago, Games People Play revolutionized our understanding of what really goes on during our most basic social interactions. More than five million copies later, Dr. Eric Bernes classic is as astonishingand revealingas it was on the day it was first published. This anniversary edition features a new introduction by Dr. James R. Allen, president of the International Transactional Analysis Association, and Kurt Vonneguts brilliant Life magazine review from 1965.
We play games all the timesexual games, marital games, power games with our bosses, and competitive games with our friends. Detailing status contests like Martini (I know a better way), to lethal couples combat like If It Werent For You and Uproar, to flirtation favorites like The Stocking Game and Lets You and Him Fight, Dr. Berne exposes the secret ploys and unconscious maneuvers that rule our intimate lives.
Explosive when it first appeared, Games People Play is now widely recognized as the most original and influential popular psychology book of our time. Its as powerful and eye-opening as ever. [via]
More editions of Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Luck, Logic, And White Lies: The Mathematics Of Games'
More editions of Luck, Logic, And White Lies: The Mathematics Of Games:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Mathematics and Politics: Strategy, Voting, Power and Proof'
More editions of Mathematics and Politics: Strategy, Voting, Power and Proof:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Mathematics of Games of Strategy: Theory and Applications'
More editions of Mathematics of Games of Strategy: Theory and Applications:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern'
An interlocked collection of literary, scientific, and artistic studies. [via]
More editions of Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny'
Nonzero, from New Republic writer Robert Wright, is a difficult and important book--well worth reading--addressing the controversial question of purpose in evolution. Using language suggesting that natural selection is a designer's tool, Wright inevitably draws the conclusion that evolution is goal-oriented (or at least moves toward inevitable ends independently of environmental or contingent variables).
The underlying reason that non-zero-sum games wind up being played well is the same in biological evolution as in cultural evolution. Whether you are a bunch of genes or a bunch of memes, if you're all in the same boat you'll tend to perish unless you are conducive to productive coordination.... Genetic evolution thus tends to create smoothly integrated organisms, and cultural evolution tends to create smoothly integrated groups of organisms.
Admittedly, it's as hard to think clearly about natural selection as it is to think about God, but that makes it just as important to acknowledge our biases and try to exclude them from our conclusions. It is this that makes Nonzero potentially unsatisfying to the scientifically literate. Time after time we've seen thinkers try to find in biological evolution a "drive toward complexity" that might explain all sorts of other phenomena from economics to spirituality. Some authors, like Teilhard de Chardin, have much to offer the careful reader who takes pains to read metaphorically. Others--legions of cranks--provide nothing but opaque diatribes culminating in often-bizarre assertions proven to nobody but the author. Wright is much closer to de Chardin along this axis; his anthropological scholarship is particularly noteworthy, and his grasp of world history is excellent. Unfortunately, he has the advocate's willingness to blind himself to disagreeable facts and to muddle over concepts whose clarity would be poisonous to his positions: try to pin him down on what he means by complexity, for example. Still, his thesis that human cultures are historically striving for cooperative, nonzero-sum situations is heartening and compelling; even though it's not supported by biology, it's not knocked down, either. If the reader can work around the undefined assumptions, Wright's charm and obvious interest in planetary survival make Nonzero a worthy read. If the first chapter's title--"The Ladder of Cultural Evolution"--makes you cringe, the last one--"You Call This a God?"--will make you smile. --Rob Lightner [via]
More editions of Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny:
› Find signed collectible books: 'On Numbers and Games'
ONAG, as the book is commonly known, is one of those rare publications that sprang to life in a moment of creative energy and has remained influential for over a quarter of a century. Originally written to define the relation between the theories of transfinite numbers and mathematical games, the resulting work is a mathematically sophisticated but eminently enjoyable guide to game theory. By defining numbers as the strengths of positions in certain games, the author arrives at a new class, the surreal numbers, that includes both real numbers and ordinal numbers. These surreal numbers are applied in the author's mathematical analysis of game strategies. The additions to the Second Edition present recent developments in the area of mathematical game theory, with a concentration on surreal numbers and the additive theory of partizan games. [via]
More editions of On Numbers and Games:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Origin of Virtue'
More editions of The Origin of Virtue:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation'
Human life, scientific journalist Matt Ridley suggests, is a complex balancing act: we behave with self-interest foremost in mind, but also in ways that do not harm, and sometimes even benefit, others. This behavior, in a strange way, makes us good. It also makes us unique in the animal world, where self-interest is far more pronounced. "The essential virtuousness of human beings is proved not by parallels in the animal kingdom, but by the very lack of convincing animal parallels," Ridley writes. How we got to be so virtuous over millions of years of evolution is the theme of this entertaining book of popular science, which will be of interest to any student of human nature. [via]
More editions of The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Prisoner's Dilemma/John Von Neumann, Game Theory and the Puzzle of the Bomb'
Prisoner's Dilemma [Paperback] by Poundstone, William [via]
More editions of Prisoner's Dilemma: John Von Neumann, Game Theory and the Puzzle of the Bomb:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Selfish Gene'
Inheriting the mantle of revolutionary biologist from Darwin, Watson, and Crick, Richard Dawkins forced an enormous change in the way we see ourselves and the world with the publication of The Selfish Gene. Suppose, instead of thinking about organisms using genes to reproduce themselves, as we had since Mendel's work was rediscovered, we turn it around and imagine that "our" genes build and maintain us in order to make more genes. That simple reversal seems to answer many puzzlers which had stumped scientists for years, and we haven't thought of evolution in the same way since.
Why are there miles and miles of "unused" DNA within each of our bodies? Why should a bee give up its own chance to reproduce to help raise her sisters and brothers? With a prophet's clarity, Dawkins told us the answers from the perspective of molecules competing for limited space and resources to produce more of their own kind. Drawing fascinating examples from every field of biology, he paved the way for a serious re-evaluation of evolution. He also introduced the concept of self-reproducing ideas, or memes, which (seemingly) use humans exclusively for their propagation. If we are puppets, he says, at least we can try to understand our strings. --Rob Lightner [via]
More editions of The Selfish Gene:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Strategy of Conflict'
More editions of Strategy of Conflict:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Superior Beings: If They Exist, How Would We Know? Game-Theoretic Implications on Omniscience, Omnipotence, Immortality and Comprehensibility'
More editions of Superior Beings: If They Exist, How Would We Know? Game-Theoretic Implications on Omniscience, Omnipotence, Immortality and Comprehensibility:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Superior Beings: If They Exist, How Would We Know?, Game-theoretic Implications of Omnipotence, Omniscience, Immortality, and Incomprehensibility'
More editions of Superior Beings: If They Exist, How Would We Know?, Game-theoretic Implications of Omnipotence, Omniscience, Immortality, and Incomprehensibility:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Survival Game: How Game Theory Explains the Biology of Cooperation and Competition'
More editions of The Survival Game: How Game Theory Explains the Biology of Cooperation and Competition:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Theory of Games and Economic Behavior'
This is the classic work upon which modern-day game theory is based. What began more than sixty years ago as a modest proposal that a mathematician and an economist write a short paper together blossomed, in 1944, when Princeton University Press published Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. In it, John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern conceived a groundbreaking mathematical theory of economic and social organization, based on a theory of games of strategy. Not only would this revolutionize economics, but the entirely new field of scientific inquiry it yielded--game theory--has since been widely used to analyze a host of real-world phenomena from arms races to optimal policy choices of presidential candidates, from vaccination policy to major league baseball salary negotiations. And it is today established throughout both the social sciences and a wide range of other sciences.
This sixtieth anniversary edition includes not only the original text but also an introduction by Harold Kuhn, an afterword by Ariel Rubinstein, and reviews and articles on the book that appeared at the time of its original publication in the New York Times, tthe American Economic Review, and a variety of other publications. Together, these writings provide readers a matchless opportunity to more fully appreciate a work whose influence will yet resound for generations to come.
[via]More editions of Theory of Games and Economic Behavior:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Theory of Games and Economic Behavior'
More editions of Theory of Games and Economic Behavior:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Theory of Poker'
The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky discusses theories and concepts applicable to nearly every variation of the game, including five-card draw (high), seven-card stud, hold em, lowball draw, and razz (seven-card lowball stud). This book introduces you to the Fundamental Theorem of Poker, its implications, and how it should affect your play. Other chapters discuss the value of deception, bluffing, raising, the slow-play, the value of position, psychology, heads-up play, game theory, implied odds, the free card, and semibluffing.
Many of todays top poker players will tell you that this is the book that really made a difference in their play. That is, these are the ideas that separate the experts from the typical players. Those who read and study this book will literally leave behind those who dont, and most serious players wear the covers off their copies. This is the best book ever written on poker. [via]
More editions of The Theory of Poker:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Thinking Strategically: The Competitive Edge in Business, Politics, and Everyday Life'
More editions of Thinking Strategically: The Competitive Edge in Business, Politics, and Everyday Life:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Two-Person Game Theory'
More editions of Two-Person Game Theory:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays'
In the quarter of a century since three mathematicians and game theorists collaborated to create Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays, the book has become the definitive work on the subject of mathematical games. Now carefully revised and broken down into four volumes to accommodate new developments, the Second Edition retains the original's wealth of wit and wisdom. The authors' insightful strategies, blended with their witty and irreverent style, make reading a profitable pleasure. In Volume 2, the authors have a Change of Heart, bending the rules established in Volume 1 to apply them to games such as Cut-cake and Loopy Hackenbush. From the Table of Contents: - If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em! - Hot Bottles Followed by Cold Wars - Games Infinite and Indefinite - Games Eternal--Games Entailed - Survival in the Lost World [via]
More editions of Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays:
› Find signed collectible books: 'El Juego De Ender / Ender's Game'
More editions of El Juego De Ender / Ender's Game:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Una Mente Prodigiosa / A Beautiful Mind'
More editions of Una Mente Prodigiosa / A Beautiful Mind:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Das Spiel: Naturgesetze Steuern D. Zufall'
Spielen ist eine Kombination aus Glück und Verstand, die es den Mitspielern erlaubt, sich in eine vorteilhafte Position zu bringen, was im Regelfall wiederum auf Kosten der anderen Teilnehmer geschieht. Wie sehr dieses einfache Prinzip unser ganzes Sein bestimmt, davon ist in diesem ungewöhnlichen Buch des Chemikers und Nobelpreisträgers Manfred Eigen und seiner Mitarbeiterin Ruthild Winkler die Rede. Dabei schlagen sie einen Bogen von den Gesetzen der Naturwissenschaften über die Prinzipien wirtschaftlicher Zusammenhänge bis hin zu den Regeln von Sprache und Musik.
Definiert man Spiel als ein Regelwerk aus Strategie und Zufall, so trifft dies auch auf die Evolution zu. "Das Spielprinzip der Evolution ist Naturgesetz" schreiben die Autoren und sie meinen damit die natürliche Selektion als Antrieb für evolutionären Fortschritt. Glück, Pech, Zufall und Wunder bekommen in diesem globalen Spiel einen festen Platz. Dabei werden die Karten zwar ständig neu gemischt, dennoch sind mathematische Regeln und Logik die Grundlage des Spiels. Immer wieder räumen die Autoren der Diskussion der Spielregeln einen großen Raum ein. Philosophen und Theologen kommen genauso zu Wort, wie Physiker und Biologen. Diese überaus komplexen Zusammenhänge kann der Leser spielend erlernen, denn das Buch wird durchzogen von Spielen, die mit einfachen Regeln nachgespielt werden können, und die in anschaulicher Weise verdeutlichen, wie sich das Konzept der Spieltheorie auf die Prozesse im Mikro- und Makrokosmos übertragen lassen.
Das überaus packende und umfangreiche Werk ist für all diejenigen gedacht, die -- inmitten des großen Spiels -- die Spielregeln beherrschen wollen und dem Zufall wenigstens hin und wieder ein Schnäppchen schlagen wollen. --J. Schüring [via]
More editions of Das Spiel: Naturgesetze Steuern D. Zufall:
