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Braess’ Paradox and Times Square’s Pedestrian Plaza

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/nyregion/12broadway.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/nyregion/26broadway.html Braess’ Paradox explains the reasoning behind the seemingly counterintuitive notion that often times, adding a road can increase traffic congestion, while removing or blocking off a road will have the opposite effect. The paradox can be framed from a Prisoner’s Dilemma perspective, where in a Prisoner’s Dilemma, players in totality would be better […]

Game Theory of Rocks, Papers, Scissors

https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-game-theory-math-behind-rock-paper-scissors-20180402/ This article models the Rocks, Papers, Scissors game as a Game Theory model by first modeling it as a pure strategy and by having winning as 1 point, tying as 0 and losing as -1. Honner, the writer, realized that as pure strategy, such as picking paper every single time, no nash equilibrium will […]

Game Theory in Batman

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohQY7kpOc50 An excellent example of the principles of game theory that we learned in class is the boat scene in the Dark Knight rises. In this scene, there are two boats. Boat A has criminals on it, Boat B has civilians. Each boat has a remote. Pressing the remote will blow up the other boat […]

Game Theory and Vaccines

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC516577/   This article ties in Game Theory to make sense of how fear of risk from vaccinations can lead to an eradication of a disease that can be preventable with a vaccination. It shows that using Game Theory analysis can help understand the decisions people make individually such as not vaccinating themselves which goes […]

Home Field Advantage and the Structural Balance Theory

http://freakonomics.com/2011/12/18/football-freakonomics-how-advantageous-is-home-field-advantage-and-why/ Freakonomics Radio is known well in the economics world for finding surprising ways economic concepts are played out in real life. One podcast, transcribed above, has stuck with me for having an unexpected conclusion. The host, Stephen J. Dubner, first establishes the fact that a “home field advantage” does exist but what people tend […]

Game Theory and Hurricane Florence

Source: https://abcnews.go.com/US/major-river-flooding-threat-posed-florence-heavy-rain/story?id=57857204 Hurricane Florence recently hit North and South Carolina leaving unaccountable destruction in its path. Some areas received two to three inches of rain per hour. Flooding destroyed many homes, cars, small businesses, roads, and other portions of the Carolinas’ infrastructure. The rain coupled with powerful winds even tore up buildings! Over 700,000 households […]

Friendships and Disasters

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/views/analysis/how-social-networks-can-save-lives-when-disasters-strike-869348.html   What makes someone likely to evacuate during a hurricane? In a world of increasing climate change and ubiquity of natural disasters, we have a large amount of data on how people tend to move during these crises. In light of the 17 deaths caused by Hurricane Florence, I thought it would be interesting […]

Game Theory in Crazy Rich Asians (Spoilers Ahead)

https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/8/17/17723242/crazy-rich-asians-movie-mahjong Crazy Rich Asians is undoubtedly one of the year’s most successful movies to reach the box offices, as it focuses on the importance of familial relationships and sacrifice. It highlights many aspects of Asian culture, and it ends with perhaps the movie’s most powerful and pivotal scene: when Rachel, the main character, plays a […]

Game theory and God

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/feb/10/religion-christianity This article attempts to address what is perhaps the longest unanswered question in human history: is God real? It begins by assuming that God is one of the players who has desires, and us humans are the other player. This assumption is what allows the game theory to be applied to the situation. To set […]

Game Theory In Football

Game Theory and Football: How Irrationality Affects Play Calling In this article, it discussed the probability and payoff of calling a run play on downs that vary in distance. It is no surprise that downs that have closer to 10 yards are more likely to have a pass play called and downs that have less than […]

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