Israel Robert John Aumann (ישראל אומן) (born June 8, 1930) is an Israeli mathematician and a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. He works at the Center for the Study of Rationality in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. Image File history File links RobertAumman. ... Image File history File links RobertAumman. ... June 8 is the 159th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (160th in leap years), with 206 days remaining. ... 1930 (MCMXXX) is a common year starting on Wednesday. ... This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... President Harding and the National Academy of Sciences at the White House, Washington, DC, April 1921 The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine. ... האוניברסיטה העברית בירושלים, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (האוניברסיטה העברית בירושלים) is one of Israels oldest, largest and most important institutes of higher learning and research. ...

Aumann was awarded the 2005 Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, colloquially known as the Nobel Prize in Economics, for "having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis". He shared the prize with Thomas Schelling. 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (in Swedish Sveriges Riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is a prize awarded each year for outstanding intellectual contributions in the field of economics. ... Sir Edward Appletons medal Photographs of Nobel Prize Medals. ... Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics that studies strategic situations where players choose different actions in an attempt to maximize their returns. ... Thomas Schelling Thomas Crombie Schelling (born 14 April 1921) is an American economist and professor of foreign affairs, national security, nuclear strategy, and arms control at the University of Maryland, College Park School of Public Policy. ...

Early life and education

Aumann was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and fled to the United States with his family in 1938, two weeks before the Kristallnacht riots. Frankfurt am Main [ˈfraŋkfʊrt] is the largest city in the German state of Hessen and the fifth largest city of Germany. ... 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... Die Kristallnacht, also known as die Reichskristallnacht (literally Imperial Crystal Night), die Pogromnacht and in English as the Night of Broken Glass, was a massive nationwide pogrom in Germany and Austria on the night of November 9, 1938 (including the early hours of the following day). ...

For high school he attended the Rabbi Jacob Joseph Yeshiva in New York City. He graduated from the City College of New York in 1950 with a B.S. in Mathematics. He received his M.S. in 1952, and his Ph.D. in Mathematics in 1955, both from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His doctoral dissertation, Asphericity of Alternating Linkages, concerned knot theory. His advisor was George Whitehead, Jr.. The City College of The City University of New York (known more commonly as City College of New York or simply City College, CCNY, or colloquially as City) is a senior college of the City University of New York, in New York City. ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1952 (MCMLII) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, is a university located in the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. MIT is one of the worlds leading research institutions in science and technology, as well as in numerous other fields, including management, economics, linguistics, political science, and philosophy. ... Trefoil knot, the simplest non-trivial knot. ...

In 1956 he joined the Mathematics faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... האוניברסיטה העברית בירושלים, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (האוניברסיטה העברית בירושלים) is one of Israels oldest, largest and most important institutes of higher learning and research. ...

In 1982 Aumann's son Shlomo was killed during operation Operation Peace for the Galilee while serving as tank gunner in the Israel Defense Forces's armored corps. 1982 (MCMLXXXII) is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The 1982 Invasion of Lebanon, dubbed Operation Peace for Galilee, began June 6, 1982, when the Israel Defence Force invaded southern Lebanon in response to the Abu Nidal organizations assassination attempt against Israels ambassador to the United Kingdom, Shlomo Argov. ... The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) (Hebrew: צבא ההגנה לישראל (help· info), [Army] Force for the Defense of Israel), often abbreviated צהל Tsahal, alternative English spelling Tzahal, is the name of Israels armed forces, comprising the Israeli army, Israeli air force and Israeli navy. ...

Contribution

Aumann's greatest contribution was in the realm of repeated games, which are situations in which players encounter the same situation over and over again. In game theory, a repeated game (or iterated game) is an extensive form game which consists in some number of repetitions of some base game (called a stage game). ...

Aumann was the first to define the concept of correlated equilibrium in game theory, which is a type of equilibrium in non-cooperative games that is more flexible than the classical Nash Equilibrium. Furthermore, Aumann has introduced the first purely formal account of the notion of common knowledge in game theory. In game theory, a correlated equilibrium is a solution concept that is more general than the well known Nash equilibrium. ... In game theory, a non-cooperative game is a one in which players can cooperate, but any cooperation must be self-enforcing. ... In game theory, the Nash equilibrium (named after John Nash who proposed it) is a kind of optimal collective strategy in a game involving two or more players, where no player has anything to gain by changing only his or her own strategy. ... Common knowledge is a special kind of knowledge for a group of agents. ...

Aumann used Game Theory also to analyze Talmudic dilemmas. He was able to solve the mystery about the "division problem", a long-time dilemma of explaining the Talmudic rationale in dividing the heritage of a late husband to his three wives, depending on the worth of the heritage (compared to its original worth). He dedicated the article in that matter to his son, Shlomo Aumann, who was killed as a soldier in Operation Peace For Galilee. The Talmud (תלמוד) is a record of rabbinic discussions on Jewish law, Jewish ethics, customs, legends and stories, which Jewish tradition considers authoritative. ... The 1982 Invasion of Lebanon, dubbed Operation Peace for Galilee, began June 6, 1982, when the Israel Defence Force invaded southern Lebanon in response to the Abu Nidal organizations assassination attempt against Israels ambassador to the United Kingdom, Shlomo Argov. ...

These are some of the theses of Aumann's Nobel lecture, named "War and Peace" [1]:

1. War is not irrational, but must be scientifically studied in order to be understood, and eventually conquered;
2. Repeated game study de-emphasizes the "now" for the sake of the "later";
3. Simplistic peacemaking can cause war, while arms race, credible war threats and mutually assured destruction can reliably prevent war.

Aumann is a member in the right wing Professors for a Strong Israel (PSI), a pro-Israeli academic group. Aumann opposed to the disengagement from Gaza in 2005 claiming it is a crime against Gush Katif settlers and a serious threat to the security of Israel. Aumann has also appeared extensively on Israeli media claiming that giving back land to the Palestinians is wrong based on the science behind game theory. In game theory, a repeated game (or iterated game) is an extensive form game which consists in some number of repetitions of some base game (called a stage game). ... In politics, right-wing, the political right, or simply the right, are terms which refer, with no particular precision, to the segment of the political spectrum in opposition to left-wing politics. ... Professors for a Strong Israel is a far-right organization of academics united by a shared concern for the security and the Jewish character of the State of Israel, and support the principle of Greater Israel. ... A map illustrating the four phases of the Gaza disengagement plan. ... Map of the Gaza Strip, showing the settlements of Gush Katif Gush Katif (also Gush Katiff, Hebrew: גוש קטיף, English: gush = side-piece, corner, or shoulder + katiff = mass of earth . ...

Torah codes controversy

Aumann has drawn criticism for his support of Torah codes research. In his position as both a religious Jew and a man of science, the codes research holds special interest to him. He has partially vouched for the validity of the Great Rabbis Experiment by Doron Witztum, Eliyahu Rips, and Yoav Rosenberg, which was published in Statistical Science. Aumann not only arranged for Rips to give a lecture on Torah codes in the Israeli Academy of Sciences, but sponsored the Witztum-Rips-Rosenberg paper for publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. The Academy requires a member to sponsor any publication in its Proceedings; the paper was turned down however. Bible codes, also known as Torah codes, are words, phrases and clusters of words and phrases that some people believe are meaningful and exist intentionally in coded form in the text of the Bible. ... Orthodox Judaism is the stream of Judaism which adheres to a relatively strict interpretation and application of the laws and ethics first canonized in the Talmud (The Oral Law) and later codified in the Shulkhan Arukh (Code of Jewish Law). It is governed by these works and the Rabbinical commentary... Bible codes, also known as Torah codes, are words, phrases and clusters of words and phrases that some people believe are meaningful and exist intentionally in coded form in the text of the Bible. ... Eliyahu Rips is an Israeli mathematician known for his research in algebra and the controversial Bible codes. ...

In 1996, a committee consisting of Robert J. Aumann, Dror Bar-Natan, Hillel Furstenberg, Isaak Lapides, and Rips, was formed to examine the results that had been reported by H.J. Gans regarding the existence of "encoded" text in the bible foretelling events that took place many years after the Bible was written. The committee performed two additional tests in the spirit of the Gans experiments. Both tests failed to confirm the existence of the putative code.

Awards

He has received the following awards:

• 1993: Harvey Award for Economics
• 1994: Israel Prize for Economical Research
• 2002: Emet Prize for economics
• 2005: Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (shared $1.3 million USD prize with Thomas Schelling)

The Israel Prize is the most prestigious award handed out by the State of Israel. ... The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (in Swedish Sveriges Riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is a prize awarded each year for outstanding intellectual contributions in the field of economics. ... This article is about general United States currency. ...

Selected publications

• Values of Non-Atomic Games, Princeton University Press,Princeton, 1974 (with L. S. Shapley).
• Game Theory (in Hebrew), Everyman's University, Tel Aviv, 1981 (with Y. Tauman and S. Zamir), Vol 1，Vol 2.
• Lectures on Game Theory, Underground Classics in Economics, Westview Press, Boulder, 1989.
• Handbook of Game Theory with economic applications, Vol 1-3, Elsevier, Amsterdam (coedited with S. Hart).
• Repeated Games with Incomplete Information, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1995 (with M. Maschler).
• Collected Papers, Vol 1-2, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2000.
• Asphericity of alternating knots. Ann. of Math. (2) 64 1956 374--392.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Robert Aumann

• His homepage
• His CV
• Extensive interview of Prof. Aumann shortly before his selection as the Nobel laureate by Sergiu Hart
• Nobel Prize Announcement
• More information about that Nobel Prize (Pdf)
• Recording of the Nobel Prize announcement and Prof. Aumann's reaction to the prize
• János Bolyai Prize
• 2002 EMET Award
• Center for the Study of Rationality
• Solution to Talmud bankrupcy problem, from the Journal of Economic Theory, 1985
• A report from the first press conference shortly after the announcement + Picture (in hebrew)
• Une approche critique des travaux des deux Prix Nobel
• Nobel laureate seeks 'cure' for war
• Chris McGreal. Calls grow for withdrawal of Nobel prize, Guardian, December 10, 2005.
• No Nobel Prizes for warmongers!, Petition to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, December 2005.
• "Madness in the method" by Bar-Hillel and Margali (explains Aumann's role in Torah codes controversy