Page 7 - Science Focus (issue20)

You might think life is quite far from being a From this table, we know that the Japanese will take
confession or coin-betting game, but game theory is the North route to minimize the days of possible attack
remarkable in that it straddles the boundaries between from the Americans (footnote 3); while no routes seem
math and social sciences – theorists have studied particularly advantageous, the better route for the
decisions made in history using game theory. A notable American navy, therefore, is also the North route based
example is, unsurprisingly, from World War II, where there on the inference above. In fact, this is exactly what
is often no room for collaboration between enemies, happened; the Allied forces sustained an air attack on
and so war is the perfect textbook example in looking the Japanese over two days, and ended up resisting
for an equilibrium. This results in a zero-sum game, when the Japanese invasion into New Guinea. Game theory is
your opponent's gain is your loss, and vice versa. Here, powerful in this way – it extends far beyond just numbers,
unlike in the prisoner’s dilemma above, cooperation is into the realms of disciplines such as history and biology.
simply not an option.
Then, you might ask, what should we do in situations
In the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, a Japanese like this? In truth, life is almost never a zero-sum game,
admiral was forced to choose between two different although the zero-sum game mindset is a common
routes, North and South [4]. The American general, belief among people [3]. You don’t have to win at the
George Kenney, tried to predict which route the expense of others – there is always a win-win solution.
Japanese would take, so that they could coordinate As much as I sound like an old person, look for these
a more persistent bomb attack on the Japanese win-win situations. There is almost always room to
Navy. Basically, the Japanese aimed at minimizing the compromise, and you don’t need to put people down
number of days of being bombed; but the American in order to pull yourself up.
would like to maximize the duration of the attack. Both
routes would take three days but American’s action was
restricted by various limitations, such as poor visibility on
the North route. The table for the scenario looks like this: 1 The Nash equilibrium is named after John Nash (1928–2015), a
mathematician who made important contributions to game
theory and geometry; the former won him the Nobel Prize for
Possible days for attack Japanese: North Japanese: South Economics in 1994. He was also portrayed in the film, A Beautiful
Mind.
American: North 2 days 2 days 2 You may want to try out the simulator itself; the prisoner’s dilemma
simulator that inspired this article is https://ncase.me/trust/.
American: South 1 day 3 days
3 If we think from the Japanese’s perspective, both routes are
equally risky if the American chooses the North route, but the
North route will become less dangerous if the American picks the
South route. As a result, the North route is more favorable for the
Japanese.

5