Game_theory

Though touched on by earlier mathematical results, modern game theory became a prominent branch of mathematics in the 1940s, especially after the publication of The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern. Game theory differs from the related field of economics in that it seeks to find rational strategies in situations where the outcome depends not only on one's own strategy and "market conditions", but upon the strategies chosen by other players with possibly different or overlapping goals.

As with economics, the results can be applied to simple games of entertainment or to more significant decisions about life and society. An example of the latter is the prisoners dilemma as popularized by mathematician Albert W. Tucker.