Collected Papers, Vol. 1
by Robert J. Aumann
Category: Mathematics

Robert Aumann's groundbreaking career in game theory has spanned over 35 years. These two volumes provide convenient access to all of his major research—from his doctoral dissertation in 1956 to papers as recent as January 1995. Threaded through all of Aumann's work (symbolized in his thesis on knots) is the study of relationships between different ideas, between different phenomena, and between ideas and phenomena. "When you look closely at one scientific idea," writes Aumann, "you find it hitched to all others. It is these hitches that I have tried to study." The papers are organized in several categories: general, knot theory, decision theory (utility and subjective probability), strategic games, coalitional games, and mathematical methods. Aumann has written an introduction to each of these groups that briefly describes the content and background of each paper, including the motivation and the research process, and relates it to other work in the collection and to work by others. There is also a citation index that allows readers to trace the considerable body of literature which cites Aumann's own work.