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Tuesday, December 13, 2005
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Israeli Receives Nobel Prize
Orthodox Jewish Israeli Robert Israel Aumann of Jerusalem received this
year’s Nobel Prize in Economics for his research and contribution to expanding
man’s understanding of conflict resolution based on the Game Theory (see box).
Along with this prestigious honor, Aumann also received a shared sum of $1.3
million with American Thomas C. Schelling.
“We made Israel a superpower… with the Game Theory,” Aumann said.
Prime Minster Ariel Sharon congratulated Aumann and said that the people
of Israel were proud of him. “I am happy that you succeeded in making a link
between economics, conflict resolution and Jewish tradition,” Sharon said.
Aumann was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1930 and fled to the US after
Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass in 1938, when the Nazis destroyed
synagogues across Germany. After completing his studies at MIT (the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Aumann immigrated to Israel and
established the Center of Rationality at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem. In 1994, Aumann was already a candidate for the Nobel Prize, but at
that time his friend, Professor John F. Nash (shown in the film A
Beautiful Mind), received the prize.
In 2002, Aumann published an article in which he analyzed two of the most
difficult passages in the Mishnah (commentary on the Torah), based on his
game theory. These passages from the tractates Ketubah and Baba-Metzia
discuss the inheritance of the deceased, including those who leave behind debts.
This article attracted worldwide interest from economists and mathematicians
analyzing 1,500-year-old Talmudic texts. It showed that even legal issues from
ancient texts could be solved scientifically. (The article in PDF format is
available at israel today.)
Regarding the Middle East conflict, Aumann claims that there is no rational
human solution, something the Bible itself confirms.
Aumann has five children, 18 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. His son
Shlomo, a former law student, was killed in a tank battle in the Lebanon
War in 1982.
A total of seven Israelis have received the Nobel Prize, four in the last four
years. In fact, almost a quarter of all Nobel Prizes have been awarded to Jews.
From Generation to Generation Nobel Prize laureate Robert Aumann finds a link
between modern economics and ancient Jewish tradition.
What is the Game Theory?
In 1944, John van Neuman and Oscar Morgenstern developed the Game Theory, which
dealt with the behavior of man as a rational player using mathematics to analyze
strategies for decision- making and problem solving. Game theory is a branch of
applied mathematics that studies strategic situations where players choose
different actions in an attempt to maximize their returns. The assumption is
that all “players” attempt to score the best results.
Game theory studies decisions that are made in an environment where various
players interact. For example, if you buy your bread from the market around the
corner for convenience, you may occasionally travel farther to buy it for less
money. But if you always go to the one shop because the bread is cheaper, the
shopkeeper will raise his prices.
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