Game theory emerged within the mathematical community in the 1920s. It seeks to predict the behavior of economic agents whose aim is to maximize their gains by making rational choices. In 1950, in a very short paper based on his thesis, mathematician John Nash proved that, under certain conditions, every game with finitely many players has at least one fixed point, which he called an "equilibrium." A Nash equilibrium is therefore reached when no player regrets their choice, since they could not have done better given their predictions of the other players' choices. This result is regarded as one of the most important in game theory: it has many applications and was recognized with the 1994 "Nobel Prize" in Economics. Nash was also awarded the highly prestigious Abel Prize in 2015. Tragically, the American mathematician and his wife died in the taxi bringing them home from the airport after the prize ceremony in Norway.

John Forbes Nash (1928–2015).

Nash, an extraordinary man --------------------------
Throughout his career, John Nash produced truly remarkable research in an exceptionally wide range of fields, often far removed from game theory. However, he suffered severe episodes of schizophrenia; from the 1960s onward, periods in psychiatric hospitals alternated with spells of mathematical activity. He achieved fame during his lifetime when, via actor Russell Crowe, he became the central figure in the 2001 film Un homme d’exception (A Beautiful Mind, Ron Howard), based on Sylvia Nasar's biography of the same name (Simon & Schuster, 1998).