Abstract: Children, even non-human love to play games, and it is clearly a fun-activity. The mathematical theory of games can however be somewhat complicated, and has some counter-intuitive results. The most famous of these is the Prisoner's Dilemma. I will discuss the resolution of this, as well as another game called Samaritan's Curse, which has attracted some attention recently. The latter game is somewhat similar to the first, in which the actions of well-meaning individuals actually end up making the situation of the intended beneficiary worse!
About the Speaker:
Deepak Dhar is a theoretical physicist known for his contributions to statistical physics and stochastic processes. Born in Pratapgarh, India, in 1951, he earned his B.Sc. from the University of Allahabad (1970), M.Sc. from IIT Kanpur (1972), and Ph.D. from Caltech. In 1978 Prof. Dhar joined the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), from where he retired as a Distinguished Professor in 2016. He then joined IISER, Pune and is now a INSA Distinguished Professor at ICTS-TIFR.
Prof. Dhar is the first Indian to receive the Boltzmann Medal (2022). He is a fellow of India’s three major science academies and TWAS. He is also the recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize (1991), Padma Bhushan (2023), IITK Distinguished Alumnus Award (2022).