| Course page: |
ON CAMPUS: http://www.math.fsu.edu/~mesterto/GameTheory.html (this
page)
OFF CAMPUS:
http://www.math.fsu.edu.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/~mesterto/GameTheory.html
(with your FSUID username and password) |
| Professor: |
Dr M-G
|
| Office: |
202B Love |
| Office hours: | Please click here. Note that office hours are primarily for
personal matters that cannot be addressed in class (as opposed to
tutorial help, for which see under Course format
and How to study below) |
| Phone: | (850 64)4 2580
|
| Main website: |
Professor M-G's
Home Page Email:
|
| Course goal: | To introduce game theory and some of its
applications |
| Class meets: |
In 106 LOV on Mondays, Wednesdays and
Fridays at 2:30—3:20 p.m.
|
| Text: |
No required text |
| Credit: |
3 semester hours. Mathematics
majors may take MAP 4180 as an elective
counting
toward credit for graduation |
| Syllabus: |
Topics selected from the following components:
Noncooperative games (including Nash equilibrium
and other solution concepts)
Population games (including evolutionary stability)
Cooperative games in strategic form
Cooperative games in characteristic function form
Cooperation and the prisoner's dilemma
Applications (including further discrete or
continuous population games) |
| Prerequisites: |
| (i) |
MAC 2313, MAS 3105, STA 4321, MAP 2302; or
Professor M-G's consent |
| (ii) |
self-motivation and industriousnes |
| (iii) | patience—an underappreciated but
essential virtue for an applied mathematician |
| My philosophy of learning is perhaps best expressed
by the green curve in the diagram below: |
|
| |
ALTERNATIVE THEORIES OF LEARNING VERSUS
PAIN
 |
For further details, please click here.
|
| Communication: |
I will send email to your FSU email account on a regular
basis. It is your responsibility to check it regularly (or arrange to
have my messages forwarded, if you prefer to read your email
elsewhere) |
| Your name: |
 |
| I don't
know who you are, but because everything works so much better
when I do, I would like to learn your name as soon as possible.
So, please take a sheet of card stock (or even paper), fold it
in half, write your name in large letters on one side and stand
it up on your desk so that I can see it. (Write what you want
me to call you: if you're a John who likes to be called Fred or
a Jane who likes to be called Sue, write Fred or Sue, not John
or Jane.) Please bring your nameplate to every class until I
have finally learnt your name (which will take significantly
longer than it used to take when I started out) |
|
| Course format: | Lectures and
discussion, with occasional periods devoted entirely to (interactive)
problem solving. Questions may be asked at any time—and should
be, if there's
anything you don't understand.
The course will be based on a preliminary draft
of the 3rd edition of my Introduction to Game-Theoretic
Modelling, of which a section or two will form the basis of each
lecture. After each period I will edit this draft (e.g., to correct
mistakes I discover during class or to rework some of the material) and
then email the resulting lecture to you as a PDF file. I will also
post the file here. So in class you should focus
on understanding what we are actually doing—as opposed to on
writing it all down, since in effect I will do that
for you!
Please note that the lectures are copyrighted
material, sent to you on the understanding that they are solely for
your personal use and not to be shared (with anyone who is not
registered for the course) |
| Homework: | After each period you should read
the associated lecture carefully and attempt any related problem.
Sometimes a lecture will go a little beyond what we actually had time
for in class, in order to advance us to a more natural break point (by
adding material that is straightforward for you to read all by
yourselves). At other times, a single lecture will cover several
periods, in which case, I will keep sending a PDF file that supersedes
the previous one, until eventually you have the whole lecture in a
single file. To the greatest extent possible, we will attempt not to
introduce new material until everyone understands what has gone before;
however, the extent to which we succeed in this regard depends
critically on how much you cooperate by doing all of your homework
before the following period. (Needless to say, when you read a
lecture, you should always keep pencil, paper and calculator handy, so
that you can fill in steps by yourself where necessary.) |
| Grades: | Will be based on five written assignments (20%
apiece), for all of which you must use ink (if you make a
mistake when writing in ink, just cross out neatly and correct). Note
that quality of presentation is extremely important, and so there will
be penalties (commensurate with degree of infraction) for badly
presented work. It is not enough merely to produce an answer. The
method by which you obtain it must be sound and clearly demonstrated:
Show all necessary steps in your method, with enough comments or
diagrams to convince that you thoroughly understand. On the other
hand, don't turn in acres and acres of verbiage: although it is
generally better to err on the side of saying too much than on the side
of saying too little, saying far too much is usually an indication that
you don't really know what you are talking about and are trying to
hide it with words.
Precise cut-off points for A, B and C will be
determined by the distribution of grades at the end of the semester,
but are likely be in the vicinity of 90%, 80% and 70%, respectively. In
borderline cases, a smaller number of completely correct solutions will
carry more weight than a proportionate number of fragmentary answers;
later scores will carry more weight than earlier scores; and a record
of active participation in class will carry more weight than a record
of passive attendance. Plus or minus grades may be assigned in a
manner consistent with standard University practice.
Please note that partial credit will be awarded
only when part of a solution is completely correct—not when all of
a solution is partially correct, whatever that means, if anything. A
score for a question worth 10 points should be interpreted as follows:
| 10 |
Practically perfect |
9 |
Still very good, but
lacking—or wrong about—a significant detail |
| 8 |
Still good, but lacking—or
wrong about—significant details |
| 7 |
Minimally satisfactory. You
have—just—managed to demonstrate that you basically
understand and are at least capable of getting all details correct
(although it clearly did not happen this time) |
| 6 |
A grade that will not be given |
| 5 |
Half right in some appropriate sense
(e.g., there were two parts, each worth 5 points, and your first part
was practically perfect) |
| 1-4 |
Not even half right and showing
little understanding, but some degree of positive effort |
| 0 |
Zero effort, or submitted in pencil |
Also note that a grade of I will not be given to avoid a grade of F or to
give additional study time. Failure to process a course drop will result in
a course grade of F |
| Attendance policy: | You are expected to attend class
regularly, and bear the full responsibility for learning anything
covered during any class that you miss. On the other hand, it would be
extremely anti-social to attend class if you either have, or are coming
down with, a contagious disease. Please keep me apprised (by email) of
any illness or other emergency, so that I can make any necessary
adjustments (and please make friends within the class as soon as
possible if you haven't done so already, so that there is someone you
can call upon to borrow notes if the need should ever arise) |
| Etiquette: |
You are firmly bound by Florida State University's Academic Honor Code. Briefly, you have the
responsibility to uphold the highest standards of academic integrity in
your own work, to refuse to tolerate violations of academic integrity
in the University community, and to foster a high sense of integrity
and social responsibility on the part of the University community. Even
more briefly, you must neither cheat nor enable others to cheat. The
penalties for violations can be severe. Please carefully read the
section in the FSU Student Handbook on the Honor Code and official
procedures for dealing with students who violate it. Although you may
discuss assignments with others in general terms, the solutions
you present must be your very own work ("in general terms" means that
discussion is oral and nothing is copied down). If you are in any doubt
at all as to what constitutes acceptable behavior in this regard, you
should ask me for clarification.
You are also bound by the ordinary rules and
customs of polite behavior that prevail in a civilized society. (In
particular, you are not allowed to use a cell phone or otherwise have
private conversations with others during class; and you are not allowed
to create disturbances through arriving late or leaving early.) |
| How to study: |
It is important that you keep up with the course from the very
beginning, always attempting as many as possible (preferably all) of
any homework problems. If you get stuck, then send me a question by
email. As soon as I possibly can, which might be as soon as within half
an hour, but might also be a day or two later (I have a life, too, you
know), I will reply—not to you, but rather to the class alias
(after carefully concealing your identity, just in case you are
inexplicably bashful about being perceived as smart enough to ask a
question).
Note, however, the following. First, you must
identify yourself (i.e., you remain anonymous to the other students in
the class, but not to me) in the body of your message (because
your username does not identify you to me, and I don't reply to
anonymous email). Second, you should be as specific as possible in
describing your difficulty: the more precisely you identify how you got
stuck, the more helpful my reply is likely to be |
| Disabilities: |
If you have a disability requiring academic accommodations, then
not only should you register with the Student Disability Resource
Center (SDRC), but
also you should bring me written confirmation from SDRC during the
first week of class |
This syllabus and other class materials are available in alternative format
upon request.
For more information about services available to FSU students with
disabilities, contact the:
On-campus tutoring and writing assistance is available for many courses at
Florida State University. For more information, visit the Academic Center
for Excellence (ACE) Tutoring Services' comprehensive list of on-campus
tutoring options—see http://ace.fsu.edu.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/tutoring or contact
tutor@fsu.edu.
High-quality tutoring is available by appointment and on a walk-in basis.
These services are offered by tutors trained to encourage the highest level
of individual academic success while upholding personal academic integrity.
"Except for changes that substantially affect implementation of the
evaluation (grading) statement, this syllabus is a guide for the course and
is subject to change with advance notice.''