History of Game Theory & Mathematics

From Cournot 1838 through von Neumann, Nash, Selten, to modern Nobel laureates.
TUTORIALS

History of Game Theory & Mathematics

From Cournot 1838 through von Neumann, Nash, Selten, to modern Nobel laureates.

Nash’s existence proof — historical context and intuition

history-of-gt-mathematics
nash-equilibrium
fixed-point-theorems
existence-proofs

A historical and mathematical account of John Nash’s 1950 proof that every finite game has a mixed-strategy equilibrium, with visual demonstrations of best-response correspondences, fixed points, and connections to computational complexity.

May 8, 2026

Selten’s trembling hand perfection — historical and technical

history-of-gt-mathematics
equilibrium-refinements
trembling-hand-perfection
nash-equilibrium

A historical and mathematical account of Reinhard Selten’s 1975 trembling hand perfect equilibrium refinement, with R implementations that verify perfection by constructing sequences of completely mixed strategy profiles converging to candidate equilibria.

May 8, 2026

Von Neumann’s minimax theorem: proof and implementation

history-of-gt-mathematics
minimax-theorem
zero-sum-games
linear-programming

A rigorous treatment of von Neumann’s 1928 minimax theorem for two-person zero-sum games, including a constructive proof via linear programming duality, a full R implementation using lpSolve, and interactive visualizations of the minimax solution surface.

May 8, 2026

From von Neumann to Nash — a mathematical timeline of game theory

history-of-gt-mathematics
timeline
mathematical-history

Interactive timeline of key results from the 1928 minimax theorem through Nash’s 1950-51 equilibrium existence proof, with R visualizations of each milestone’s mathematical contribution to game theory.

May 8, 2026

Zermelo’s Theorem – The First Formal Result in Game Theory

history-of-gt-mathematics
backward-induction
combinatorial-games

Explore Zermelo’s 1913 theorem on determined games, implementing backward induction for Nim and simplified chess endgames in R, with Sprague-Grundy theory and Grundy value computation.

May 8, 2026
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