Robert Aumann

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Yisrael Aumann
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Robert Aumann
George Whitehead, Jr.
Doctoral studentsDavid Schmeidler
Sergiu Hart
Abraham Neyman
Yair Tauman
Academic career
Information at IDEAS / RePEc

Robert John Aumann (

United States National Academy of Sciences. He is a professor at the Center for the Study of Rationality in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. He also holds a visiting position at Stony Brook University
, and is one of the founding members of the Stony Brook Center for Game Theory.

Aumann received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2005 for his work on conflict and cooperation through game theory analysis.[1] He shared the prize with Thomas Schelling.[1]

Early years

Aumann was born in

Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and fled to the United States with his family in 1938, two weeks before the Kristallnacht pogrom. He attended the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School, a yeshiva high school in New York City.[citation needed
]

Academic career

Aumann graduated from the

George Whitehead, Jr.

In 1956 he joined the Mathematics faculty of the

Universite Catholique de Louvain (1972, 1978, 1984).[2]

Mathematical and scientific contribution

Aumann in 2005

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.

Aumann was the first to define the concept of

Bayesian rationalists with common prior beliefs cannot agree to disagree.[3]

Aumann and

tank gunner in the Israel Defense Forces's armored corps
.

Aumann's Ph.D. students include David Schmeidler, Sergiu Hart, Abraham Neyman, and Yair Tauman.

Torah codes controversy

Aumann has entered the controversy of

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The academy requires a member to sponsor any publication in its Proceedings; the paper was turned down however.[6]

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.

After a long analysis of the experiment and the dynamics of the controversy, stating for example that "almost everybody included [in the controversy] made up their mind early in the game" Aumann concluded: "A priori, the thesis of the Codes research seems wildly improbable... Research conducted under my own supervision failed to confirm the existence of the codes – though it also did not establish their non-existence. So I must return to my a priori estimate, that the Codes phenomenon is improbable".[7]

Political views

These are some of the themes of Aumann's Nobel[1] lecture, named "War and Peace":[8]

  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 an arms race, credible war threats and mutually assured destruction can reliably prevent war.

Aumann is a member of

the disengagement from Gaza in 2005 claiming that it was a crime against Gush Katif settlers and a serious threat to the security of Israel. Aumann drew on a case in game theory called the Blackmailer Paradox to argue that giving land to the Arabs is strategically foolish based on the mathematical theory.[9] By presenting an unyielding demand, he claims that the Arab states will force Israel to "yield to blackmail
due to the perception that it will leave the negotiating room with nothing if it is inflexible".

As a result of his political views, and his use of his research to justify them, the decision to give him the Nobel prize[1] was criticized in the European press. A petition to cancel his prize garnered signatures from 1,000 academics worldwide.[10]

In a speech to the religious Zionist youth movement,

Psalm 127: "Unless the Lord builds a house, its builders toil on it in vain." Aumann feels that the historical Zionist establishment failed to transmit its message to its successors, because it was secular. The only way that Zionism can survive, according to Aumann, is if it has a religious basis.[11]

In 2008, Aumann joined the Ahi political party, which was led at the time by Effi Eitam and Yitzhak Levy.[12]

Personal life

Aumann married Esther Schlesinger in April 1955 in

tank gunner in the Israel Defense Forces's armored corps in the 1982 Lebanon War. Machon Shlomo Aumann, an institute affiliated with Shaalvim that republishes old manuscripts of Jewish legal texts, was named after him. Esther died of ovarian cancer in October 1998. In late November 2005, Aumann married Esther's widowed sister, Batya Cohn.[1]

Aumann is a cousin of the late Oliver Sacks.[13]

Honours and awards

Publications

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Robert J. Aumann on Nobelprize.org Edit this at Wikidata
  2. ^ "CV (Robert J. Aumann)". Einstein Institute of Mathematics. Retrieved 4 June 2017.
  3. JSTOR 2958591
    .
  4. S2CID 153741018
    . Retrieved July 29, 2015.
  5. ^ Aumann, Yisrael (1999). "B'Inyan Mi SheHayah Nasui Shalosh Nashim" בענין מי שהיה נשוי שלוש נשים [Regarding One who was Married to Three Wives] (PDF). מוריה (Moriah) (in Hebrew). 22 (3–4). Jerusalem: Machon Yerushalayim: 98–107. Retrieved July 29, 2015.[verification needed]
  6. ISBN 9780309096584
    .
  7. ^ Aumann, R.H., H. Furstenberg, I. Lapides, and D. Witztum (July 2004). "Analyses of the 'Gans' Committee Report (#365)" (PDF). Center for the Study of Rationality, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-06-25. Retrieved 2006-06-20. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ Robert Aumann's Nobel Prize in Economics lecture, Stockholm, 8 December 2005
  9. ^ Aumann, Robert (July 3, 2010). "Game Theory and negotiations with Arab countries". ICJS.
  10. ^ "Anti-Israel protests against Nobel prize award". Western Europe. European Jewish Press. Archived from the original on 2010-12-15. Retrieved 2010-02-05.
  11. ^ Chason, Miri (2006-01-24). "Nobel laureate: Satmars were right about Israel". Ynet.
  12. Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on 2012-01-04. Retrieved 2018-01-13. http://www.eitam.org.il/info_en.asp?id=2062535187 Archived 2008-06-26 at the Wayback Machine
  13. ^ Sacks, Oliver (14 August 2015). "Sabbath". Opinion | Oliver Sacks. The New York Times.
  14. ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter A" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 27 April 2011.
  15. ^ "Israel Prize Official Site – Recipients in 1994 (in Hebrew)".
  16. ^ Nemmers Prize Recipients Archived 2006-02-22 at the Wayback Machine Northwestern University
  17. ^ "The EMET Prize for Art, Science and Culture in the Social Sciences".
  18. ^ "Recipients of Yakir Yerushalayim award (in Hebrew)". Archived from the original on 2013-10-22. City of Jerusalem official website

External links

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Awards
Preceded by
Thomas C. Schelling
 		Succeeded by
Edmund S. Phelps
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