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Mathematics Goes to the Movies
by Burkard Polster and Marty Ross
92:05
Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) is describing the ruthless nature of the
stock market.
It’s a zero-sum game: somebody wins, somebody loses.
REMARKS: The stock market may be ruthless, but is definitely not a zero-sum
game. Modelling with zero-sum games cannot capture the value of collaboration
in economic situations, exactly the point of considering more general games.
It was the proving of the existence of equilibium solutions to such games which
made John Nash, the hero of A Beautiful Mind, famous.