Braess’ Paradox in the World of Science
In our study of game theory, we looked at an example about the “game” of traffic and commutes. The goal of a driver is reach their destination in the shortest amount of time, which can be done so by avoiding traffic. Determining which path one would choose has much to do with human psychology, with different people choosing which paths to take by considering their own individual payoffs from certain paths versus others. They also take into consideration what the other “players” of the game (i.e. the other drivers) will do, so that they themselves can find a best response . By conventional logic, one would expect that more roads would mean less congestion and therefore shorter commutes. However, we learned that there are reported cases in which removing a connecting road or bridge would actually ultimately reduce traffic and shorten commutes. This phenomenon is known as Braess’ paradox. Since this is within the topic of game theory, which relies on human interaction, decisions, and payoffs, this must be a principle which is only applicable in circumstances where people are consciously choosing to do something, right? Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and University of Hartford have found that this may not be the case.
The team published in an article in the European Physics Letters that the Braess’ paradox could extend into the realm of science as well, primarily electrical circuits. They found that electrons in the circuits play a similar game to that of drivers seeking to minimize their commute, with the electrons seeking to minimize their voltage drop as it flows from its origin to its destination. Surprisingly enough, in these special circuits that they discovered, electrons exhibit the same behavior and “decision making” as humans in a transportation network, including the Braess’ paradox. This is great news for the field of network analysis and game theory. One wouldn’t expect electrons, who can’t think, to be able to make a “decision” in their best interest, but somehow in these circuits they actually will follow the logic that a human driver would. This opens up a lot of room for further research on networks in the future, because these circuits can now be utilized in the lab to observe the electron interactions and decisions, and the findings can be extrapolated to eventually formulate hypotheses about all networks. By using circuits, data collection for the purpose of understanding networks becomes a much faster, cheaper, and convenient task.
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URL: https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/nagurneys-publish-article-confirming