Robert Aumann

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Robert Aumann in May 2009 at the 39th St. Gallen Symposium

Israel Robert John Aumann ( Hebrew ישראל אומן for Israel Aumann ; * June 8, 1930 in Frankfurt am Main ) is a mathematician of German descent with Israeli and US citizenship . In 2005 he was awarded the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics .

Life

Robert Aumann 1977
Robert Aumann 2008

Robert Aumann was born in Frankfurt am Main as the son of Moses Aumann. Moses Aumann, born in Friedrichsdorf in 1854 , founded the textile company Aumann & Rapp, Kaiserstraße 65-69 , with family members in Frankfurt am Main . The Aumann family lived in the Bockenheimer Anlage , house number 2, the house was destroyed in the war. As a child and a pupil of the Samson-Raphael-Hirsch School, Aumann was a victim of the anti-Semitic bullying of German children. In 1938, two weeks before the Reichspogromnacht , the Jewish Orthodox family fled to England and from there to New York . The company in Frankfurt was " Aryanized ".

Aumann studied mathematics in the USA and graduated in 1950 with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from the City College of New York . He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Master of Science degree in 1952 and received a Ph.D. in 1955 from George W. Whitehead. PhD . In his dissertation, he proved that the complements of alternating nodes are aspherical . He then went to Princeton and worked on operations research models, but he was interested in game theory .

In 1956 Aumann moved to Israel . Robert Aumann teaches at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem . There he conducts research at the interdisciplinary institute Center for the Study of Rationality , founded in 1991, together with economists, mathematicians, psychologists, biologists, physicians and philosophers. Since 1989 he has also been visiting professor at Stony Brook University , where he co-founded the Center for Game Theory in Economics .

In 2005, the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences decided to award Aumann and Thomas C. Schelling the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics donated by the Swedish Reichsbank: “They have,” according to the Academy, “through game theory analyzes, our understanding of conflict and Cooperation advanced ".

Aumann has written five well-known books and published over seventy scientific publications. He is honorary doctor of numerous universities such as the Université catholique de Louvain , the University of Chicago and the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Bonn .

Robert Aumann is a member of the US Academy of Sciences, the US Academy of Science and Art, and the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities . Aumann was President of the IMU (Israel Mathematics Union) and is the first President of the newly founded Game Theory Society . He is also an external advisory member of the IBM board .

Scientific contributions

Aumann's greatest contribution was in the field of repeated games , in which players repeatedly play a one-shot game .

Aumann was the first to describe the concept of correlative equilibrium in game theory. This kind of equilibrium in non-cooperative games is more flexible than the Nash equilibrium . Aumann also explored the idea of common knowledge in game theory in a drastic way.

As an Orthodox religious Jew , Aumann also used game theory to analyze the Talmudic predicaments. He was able to solve the riddles of the "problem of division" - an old dilemma, explaining the Talmudic principles of dividing the inheritance of a deceased husband among his three wives according to the value of the inheritance (compared to the original value).

Bible code controversy

Aumann drew some criticism for his interest in studying the thoracic code . He partially advocated the validity of Eliyahu Rips 'and Doron's wits ' Great Rabbi Experiment . In his capacity as both a Jew and a man of science, code research carried some meaning to him.

In 1996 a committee was put together in which Aumann and Hillel Fürstenberg were members. It was intended to examine the results reported by HJ Gans regarding the existence of "encrypted" text in the Bible that is said to have foretold events that would take place many years after the Bible was written. The committee carried out two additional tests in the spirit of Gans' experiments. Both tests to confirm the existence of the supposed code failed.

Political views and activities

Aumann is a member of Professors for a Strong Israel (PSI), a non-partisan right-wing conservative organization of academics in support of the State of Israel , which speaks out against the Oslo Accords and against the dismantling of settlements in the West Bank .

It is far to the right in the Israeli political spectrum. He described the withdrawal of the Israeli settlers from Gaza as "immoral, inhuman and stupid". He brought an example from game theory, the blackmailer's paradox, describing the Israelis as rational and enlightened, the Arabs as irrational and stubborn. In 2010, when asked by a Maariv journalist about the coexistence of Jews and Arabs, he said that Israel should build fences around the Arab cities in Israel. He said Israel must remain Jewish, and Jews and Arabs should live in different countries. The University of Haifa decided u. a. Due to Aumann's ultra-right political views, he was not awarded an honorary doctorate, which led to a protest among the university staff. In August 2014, in connection with Operation Protective Edge, he proposed that Israel set up an automatic weapons system that would automatically fire a missile at Gaza every time Hamas fires a rocket at Israel.

Honors, prizes and memberships (selection)

Aumann has received numerous prizes and honors for his economic work:

Fonts (selection)

  • Robert J. Aumann, Lloyd S. Shapley: Values ​​of Non-Atomic Games , Princeton University Press 1972, ISBN 0-691-08103-4
  • Robert Aumann, Werner Hildenbrand, Joachim. Rosenmüller: Essays in Game Theory and Mathematical Economics. In Honor of Oskar Morgenstern. , Spectrum Akadadimscher Verlag Heidelberg 1981, ISBN 3-86025-972-5
  • Robert J. Aumann, Sergiu Hart: Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications Volume 1 (Handbooks in Operations Research and Management Science) , Elsevier Science 1992, ISBN 0-444-88098-4
  • Sergiu Hart: Game and Economic Theory: Selected Contributions in Honor of Robert J. Aumann , University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 1995, ISBN 0-472-10673-2
  • Robert J. Aumann: Repeated Games with Incomplete Information , MIT Press 1995, ISBN 0-262-01147-6
  • Robert J. Aumann: Collected Papers - Vol. 1 , MIT Press 2000, ISBN 0-262-01154-9
  • Robert J. Aumann: Collected Papers - Vol. 2 , MIT Press 2000, ISBN 0-262-01155-7
  • Robert J. Aumann, Sergiu Hart: Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications (Handbook of Game Theory) , North-Holland 2002, ISBN 0-444-89428-4

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 'Former pupil of the Samson-Raphael-Hirsch-Schule received the Nobel Prize' In: VEH Information for Members, No. 100 December 2005, p. 7 ( Memento of the original from January 29, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link became automatic used and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on: vehev.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.vehev.de
  2. ↑ R. Aumann: asphericity of alternating knots. Ann. of Math. (2) 64 1956 374-392.
  3. ↑ Robert Aumann, Professor at Stony Brook University Wins Nobel Prize in Economics ( Memento of the original from December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . From: Stonybrook.edu/economics , accessed November 26, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.stonybrook.edu
  4. ↑ Tamara Traubman: Aumann: Game theory proves failure of Oslo. In: Haaretz : October 12, 2005.
  5. ↑ ibid.
  6. ↑ Oudeh Basharat: A Nobel laureate's ignoble savages. In: Haaretz , December 23, 2013.
  7. ↑ Michael Handelzalts: Israel's culture wars: behind the scenes of the latest scandals. In: Haaretz , February 13, 2014.
  8. ^ Revital Hovel, Yarden Skop: Haifa U. faculty protests denial of honorary doctorate to rightist economist. In: Haaretz , January 7, 2014.
  9. ↑ Hovel / Skop: op. Cit.
  10. ↑ Carolina Landsmann: Automatic retaliation won't give Israelis inner peace. In: Haaretz , August 26, 2014.
  11. ^ Fellows: Robert Aumann. British Academy, accessed August 26, 2020 .

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Aumann, Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Aumann, Israel Robert John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli-American mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH June 8, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main , Germany