Ivar Ekeland
CEREMADE et Institut de Finance, Université Paris-Dauphine, 75775 Paris CEDEX 16, France
url: www.ceremade.dauphine.fr/~ekeland/
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Title of the talk: The complexity of societies: how to build stable relationships between people who lie and cheat
Abstract: Solids consist of atoms, and societies consist of individuals.
Atoms are all identical, and have very few characteristics, each of which is known to
a high degree of accuracy. Individuals are all different, and have very many characteristics,
most of which they can hide, or outright misrepresent. Even very simple relationships, like a
contract between two parties, whereby one agrees to perform a job for the other, have to be quite
complex because each party knows that the other can lie and cheat, and wants to safeguard itself
against that possibility. I will show that on a specific example, and show also the mathematics involved.
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