Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (game theory)

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Plain-language summary

In 1944 John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern set out a mathematical theory of how rational agents should act when their outcomes depend on each other's choices. They formalized games, strategies, and payoffs, and proved results such as the minimax theorem for zero-sum games, along with a theory of utility for decisions under uncertainty. The book gave economics and later computer science a rigorous way to reason about competition and cooperation. Its concepts underpin work on reinforcement learning, mechanism design, and multi-agent AI.