FIRST EDITION OF ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE 20TH-CENTURY. VON N...

FIRST EDITION OF ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE 20TH-CENTURY. VON NEUMANN, JOHN; and OSKAR MORGENSTERN. Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944. Publisher's cloth, original brown printed dust jacket, some closed tears to edges, with rear panel rubbed with some paper/text loss. WITH: Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947. Publisher's red cloth, original morocco label, titled in gilt. WITH: STONE, RICHARD. 'Theory of Games,' OFFPRINT FROM: Economic Journal 58 (230), pp 185–201. Calf-backed boards, original wrappers bound in, rare. Provenance: Hon. Stanley C. Wisniewski (pencil inscription) in each volume. FIRST EDITION OF VON NEUMANN AND MORGENSTERN'S MONUMENTAL PRESENTATION OF GAME THEORY, 'one of the more significant scientific contributions of the twentieth century' (Leonard, Von Neumann, Morgenstern, and the Creation of Game Theory, 2010, p 1), with profound effects in science, sociology and politics. Von Neumann first wrote seriously about games in a 1928 paper, but it was not until this collaboration with Oskar Morgenstern that game theory was presented as an econometric tool. 'The method of von Neumann and Morgenstern has become the archetype of later applications of game theory. One takes an economic problem, formulates it as a game, finds the game-theoretic solution, then translates the solution back into economic terms' (New Palgrave). However, 'it would be doing the authors an injustice to say that theirs is a contribution to economics only. The scope of the book is much broader. The techniques applied by the authors in tackling economic problems are of sufficient generality to be valid in political science, sociology, or even military strategy. The applicability to games proper (chess and poker) is obvious from the title. Moreover, the book is of considerable interest from a purely mathematical point of view...' (Hurwicz in World of Mathematics, vol 2, p 1267 ff). Also, in the words of two Nobel Prize winning economists, 'a landmark in the history of ideas' and a seminal work in mathematics and economics, which 'has had a profound impact on statistics' (Dorfman, Samuelson & Solow Linear Programming and Economic Analysis pp 417, 445). With a copy of the second edition, adding an important appendix containing an axiomatic derivation of numerical utility, and a new preface noting updates in the field, and a rare offprint of Stone's commentary. Origins of Cyberspace 953. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing