How to Have Hope: Musings on How to Achieve Cooperation and Peace Using Law, Math, and Physics

Many years ago, I was a “why” person. In fact, I’m still a “why” person and I always want to know why things are the way they are because if the reason isn’t good, then something (like rules) may have to change. I used to pester my parents, and ask “why, why, why” about basically anything in any subject, and my parents, who were educated, my Dad at the University of Chicago, and my Mom at Oberlin with an actual PhD at UC Berkeley, did their best to answer my questions. However, in the end, my tiny five-year-old self stumped them routinely and they would eventually run out of answers. Asking “why” is one of my favorite techniques, not to disrespect boundaries because obviously “no” in many contexts is a full and complete answer and no one has to justify, for example, not requiting romantic interest. But if the legal system is built on making sense, then laws  ought  to have sound justifications for why rules or laws exist.  My life’s work actually started well before I was...

Today's blog is an official commitment: from henceforth, my academic scholarship will only consist of two problems: a) proving John Nash wrong in every way I can, and b) if I have time and I'm lucky, I will prove Stephen Hawking right. And while I may not have a PhD in physics, thus no degree, I have raw smarts, and my math and physics speaks for itself, and have a whole lot in common with the eccentric scientist Dr. Kary Mullis, who lived in the Midwest and worked at Kansas University  ( check out his bio) .   Freeman Dyson, the Nobel-caliber physicist whose work I’m vindicating didn’t have a PhD either , though I want one to be taken seriously.    Both/and.   There are many roads or paths for me to do this, and much of math and physics are free or largely inexpensive, and even if I never do experimental physics (which is incredibly expensive,  ask NSF)  I can do theoretical physics with a pen and paper and textbooks anywhere, anytime ...

             Today’s post is about a new preliminary answer to the  “Pennies Game.”  Which is a precursor game to the Prisoner’s Dilemma invented by RAND game theorist Merrill Flood. The “Pennies Game” – depicted here by Flood – is an asymmetric game rather than a symmetric game and this is relevant or arguably more relevant to the power dynamics between more powerful players and less powerful players,  such as the game between Trump, Columbia, and Harvard  (although I previously explained that scenario is an asymmetric, multiplayer game).      The Pennies Game has two players with pennies who have to split the pennies, and can opt between splitting these proceeds, or keeping them with one player having more pennies than the other. Here, Flood’s answer (1,2) vindicates  the game theorist John von Neumann  and in real life with two players playing for pennies, the two players choose to have one player ea...

                 Many of my amazing heroes are Black persons—including and especially my Fourth Circuit  Judge Roger L. Gregory,  who embodies grace, decorum, and dignity in addition to brilliance. Judge Gregory long ago reenforced an idea that I already knew and that scholars like  Ibram X. Kendi  have written  eloquent books about —namely that our country (the United States) has never been equal or fair and that white persons (including white women, though mostly white wealthy men) have been the beneficiaries of unfairness.                    A prime example of an aspect of the U.S. Constitution that embodies unfairness is the  3/5 th  clause, which states that slaves are counted as 3/5ths of all other persons under American law. Even though the Constitution was amended after the Civil War to include the...

Today’s blog is for all those who doubt women in math and science: main point, we (women) have to be twice as good to get half as far, and women of color, in particular, have it bad, and beautiful women also have it bad. I’m going to make some humorous remarks about boobs and bras and how to mathematically diagram bras and boobs so if readers find those remarks are offensive, don’t read on. I make them to make a point: which is that women are often objectified and viewed as pieces of “meat” rather than as equals. Which we are or should be,  given we are 50% of the population, but only 8% of senior scientists  published in the journal  Nature  (note this article is about Canada, I assume it’s worse in the United States).  My expertise is game theory, which can be applied to many serious things,  including quantum computing . But game theory methods from one of my favorite think tanks, RAND,  uses advanced calculus  and many  game theorists als...