WORLD-RENOWNED game theorist David Yeung Wing-kay was the only Hong Kong scholar to join the recent International Congress of Mathematicians, where Nobel laureate John Nash was among the participants.
Professor Yeung is convinced society would be better off if everyone understood the secrets of game theory and applied them to life.
The director of the Centre of Game Theory at Hong Kong Baptist University thinks the penny-stocks fiasco could have been avoided, and regional disputes in places such as the Middle East could be eased, if those involved made decisions after a thorough assessment of how different parties will react.
Only in rare situations, Professor Yeung maintains, does life become a zero-sum game, in which one can only gain at the expense of another.
'In many cases, from game theorists' point of view, we can pre-empt some unfortunate things from happening . . . if more people were equipped with game theory, we would be in a better society,' he said.
Game theory, which dates back to the Roman Empire and was used in ancient China, is the study of decision-making in an interactive environment. The field now draws on mathematics, operational research, engineering, management science, biology, economics, political science and other disciplines.