The problem on the desk
How should a limited number of inspections be distributed when the inspected party can hide violations? Dresher treated sampling as strategic interaction because the population being sampled could itself be altered.1
A life in moments
- 1937
Yale University · New Haven
Completed his doctorate on generalised groups.2
- 1950
RAND Corporation · Santa Monica
Collaborated with Merrill Flood on an experimental non-cooperative game.3
- 1961
RAND Corporation · Santa Monica
Published Games of Strategy.4
- 1962
RAND Corporation · Santa Monica
Issued the memorandum on limited sampling inspections.5
- 1964
Co-edited Advances in Game Theory with Shapley and Tucker.6,7
Every line rests on a dated source (numbered below) unless it carries a mark: R for an inference, S for a story as told.
In their own words
sampling for arms control resembles a game of strategy between the inspector and the inspected.
A story
An unintended introduction
Flood and Dresher intended to keep each player ignorant of the other player’s identity. Flood records that an accident at the outset defeated that plan. He therefore allowed for implicit cooperation within the rules when interpreting the experiment.8
A firsthand methodological qualification in Flood’s report; no details of the accident are invented.
Around Dresher
- worked together Merrill Flood Flood records their experimental-game collaboration.3
- co-editor Lloyd S. Shapley Co-edited Advances in Game Theory with Shapley and Tucker.6
Recorded as advisor Øystein Ore Mathematics Genealogy Project record
The genealogy lists only what the database records; a missing name is not a missing teacher.
The card in the book
Mathematician, educated at Lehigh University (bachelor's degree, 1933) and Yale (doctorate, 1937); by the late 1940s he was working on game theory at the RAND Corporation. In January 1950 he and Merrill Flood planned and ran the experiment with the game later known as the prisoner's dilemma. His book presents two-person games together with their computational methods, and his 1962 memorandum analyses the recursive inspection game with which this chapter begins.
Main works Games of Strategy: Theory and Applications (1961); A Sampling Inspection Problem in Arms Control Agreements: A Game-Theoretic Analysis (RAND RM-2972-ARPA, 1962).
To read further
- Some Experimental Games, Merrill M. Flood (1952) · firsthand research account
Sources (9)
- A Sampling Inspection Problem in Arms Control Agreements: A Game-Theoretic Analysis, Melvin Dresher, 1962; Preface p. iii; summary p. v
- Mathematics Genealogy Project: 42897, Mathematics Genealogy Project; Degree, advisor and student table
- Some Experimental Games, Merrill M. Flood, 1952; RM-789-1-PR; section 5, A Non-cooperative Pair (January 1950), p. 17 (PDF p. 19), including first footnote
- Games of Strategy: Theory and Applications, Melvin Dresher; RAND, 1961; Publisher description of original 1961 work; digital reissue 2007
- A Sampling Inspection Problem in Arms Control Agreements: A Game-Theoretic Analysis, Melvin Dresher, 1962; Title page and preface
- Melvin Dresher: author and editor bibliography, Princeton University Press; Advances in Game Theory: editors Dresher, Shapley and Tucker
- Michael B. Maschler, INFORMS; Selected Publications: 1964 bargaining-set chapter in Advances in Game Theory
- Some Experimental Games, Merrill M. Flood, 1952; p. 17 (PDF p. 19), section 5
- A Sampling Inspection Problem in Arms Control Agreements: A Game-Theoretic Analysis, Melvin Dresher, 1962; Preface p. iii; excerpt
The facts on this page were gathered for the site from the sources listed, each checked against its locator; the book's card is reproduced unchanged.