Saddle Point
Back to the cover

Part I · Foundations

  1. 0 Mathematical Foundations
  2. 1 Observation, Beliefs, and Decision

Part II · Engines

  1. 2 Competing for Allocation: The Blotto Game
  2. 3 Bargaining, Commitment, and Repeated Cooperation
  3. 4 Signals, Disclosure, and Persuasion
  4. 5 Different Models of One Game
  5. 6 Leadership and Rules: Inspection
  6. 7 Decisions in Time
  7. 8 Many Agents
  8. 9 Networks, Dependence, and Resilience
  9. 10 Aggregating Information

Part III · Systems

  1. 11 Architecture of Decision Support
  2. 12 Simulation and Wargaming with AI Agents

Part IV · Limits

  1. 13 Where the Mathematics Stops

Chapter 6 · Leadership and Rules: Inspection

Yuri B. Germeier

1918 – 1975

The problem on the desk

What can the first mover guarantee when it announces a choice or response rule, yet knows the second mover’s interests only within a set? Germeier treated uncertainty about both preferences and the selection among best responses explicitly.1

A life in moments

  1. 1918

    Atkarsk

    Born on 18 July.2

  2. 1941

    Moscow State University · Moscow

    Completed the mechanics and mathematics faculty.2

  3. 1947

    Moscow State University · Moscow

    Defended a candidate dissertation on generalised derivatives and trigonometric series.2

  4. 1966

    Computing Centre of the Academy of Sciences · Moscow

    Began directing a research sector.3

  5. 1970

    Moscow State University · Moscow

    Founded and first headed the Department of Operations Research.3

  6. 1971

    Computing Centre of the Academy of Sciences · Moscow

    Published his fixed-sequence two-person game analysis.4

  7. 1975

    Moscow

    Died on 24 June.2

Every line rests on a dated source (numbered below) unless it carries a mark: R for an inference, S for a story as told.

A story

A best response need not be unique

The 1971 paper does not assume that a follower’s best-response set has one member. The leader must consider whichever member may be chosen, together with uncertainty about the follower’s interests.5

A documented modelling decision; no invented dialogue or personal anecdote.

Around Germeier

  • worked together Nikolai Moiseev Developed hierarchical-system theory with Moiseev.6
  • cited his work John F. Nash Jr. The 1971 paper cites Nash’s 1951 non-cooperative-games article and its Russian translation.7

Recorded as students Vladimir Gurvich 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 at the Computing Centre of the USSR Academy of Sciences and at Moscow State University, where in 1970 he founded and first headed the Department of Operations Research of the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics. He used guaranteed-result criteria in operations research and in games with non-opposed interests, and studied what a leader can secure by announcing a choice or a response rule when the follower's interests are not fully known. With N. N. Moiseev he also studied hierarchical control systems.

Main works Introduction to the Theory of Operations Research (in Russian, Nauka, 1971); “On two-person games with a fixed sequence of moves” (in Russian, DAN SSSR 198(5), 1971); Games with Non-Opposed Interests (in Russian, Nauka, 1976; English: Non-Antagonistic Games, 1986).

To read further

  • Germeier Yuri Borisovich, Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics, Moscow State University · institutional biography
Sources (7)
  1. On two-person games with a fixed sequence of moves, Yuri B. Germeier, 1971; pp. 1001–1002, section I
  2. Yuri Borisovich Germeier, Chronicle of Moscow University; Birth/death, education and appointments
  3. Germeier Yuri Borisovich, Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics, Moscow State University; Dated biography; research and courses
  4. On two-person games with a fixed sequence of moves, Yuri B. Germeier, 1971; Doklady Akademii Nauk SSSR 198(5), pp. 1001–1004; sections I–II and references
  5. On two-person games with a fixed sequence of moves, Yuri B. Germeier, 1971; pp. 1001–1002
  6. Germeier Yuri Borisovich, Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics, Moscow State University; Research paragraph
  7. On two-person games with a fixed sequence of moves, Yuri B. Germeier, 1971; p. 1004, reference 1

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.