Archive of January 2010

January 21

Game Theory Update

One of the classes I’m attend­ing is Prof. Ari­jit Sen’s famous class on Game Theory.

Prof. Sen is if you remem­ber is my favourite pro­fes­sor here. This time, here is another gem from the exten­sive class notes and read­ing mate­r­ial he hands out before class.

This is from an extended exam­ple about ana­lyz­ing and solv­ing co-​​ordination prob­lems using Game The­ory. The exam­ple talks about two researchers Bob and Alice work­ing on a paper from two remote loca­tions. The final para­graph (each para­graph is a sep­a­rate co-​​ordinaton problem).

June 29th, 3 pm: Their paper has been accepted for pub­li­ca­tion. In an elated state of mind, each is now plan­ning to go for a vaca­tion either to a Napa Val­ley resort or to a Santa Bar­bara beach resort. But here, they face the fol­low­ing prob­lem. Dur­ing their col­lab­o­ra­tion, Bob has come to enjoy Alice’s com­pany so much that he wants to go to the same resort that Alice will be going to. Alice, on the other hand, con­sid­ers Bob to be a good pro­fes­sional col­league but not a ‘close friend’. Want­ing to keep things that way, she does not want to go to the same resort as Bob, but nei­ther does she want to tell this to Bob and hurt his feel­ings. Given that they are select­ing their vaca­tion des­ti­na­tions sit­ting in their respec­tive lab­o­ra­to­ries, how should they choose?

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