Aumann, Robert John (1930-…), is an Israeli and American mathematician who won the 2005 Nobel Prize in economic sciences. He shared the award with the American economist Thomas C. Schelling for their advances in the use of game theory. Game theory is a method of studying decision-making situations in which the choices of two or more individuals or groups influence one another. Game theorists refer to these situations as games and to the decision makers as players.
Aumann used game theory to examine conflict and cooperation in such areas as economics, political science, biology, computer science, and philosophy. Much of his work involved the study of long-term interactions in which players repeat games on a regular basis. He found that, in many situations, players will cooperate in a series of repeated games even though they have conflicts of interest in the short run. Aumann’s theory of repeated games greatly influenced the way that game theorists analyze long-term interactions.
Aumann was born on June 8, 1930, in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1950, he received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the City College of New York. He continued to study mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received a master’s degree in 1952 and a Ph.D. in 1955. In 1956, he joined the faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Aumann has also taught at Yale University, Stanford University, Northwestern University, and a number of other schools. Aumann is a citizen of both Israel and the United States.
See also Game theory ; Schelling, Thomas Crombie .
