Maths Society Explore Game Theory

On Wednesday, 31st January, nine members of the Upper Sixth Maths Society attended the Popular Maths Lecture at the University of Birmingham.

The evening started with a vast quantity of pizza being devoured at school. With very full stomachs, we then travelled to the University.

The lecture, entitled “Winter’s Wrath: Community Snow Removal”, was delivered by Dr J Andrews. The lecture explored using game theory for decision-making in grouped settings; it looked at cost over benefit and how this affects the probability of individuals in a group acting in a particular way. As is typical in Maths, we looked at what happened with an infinite number of people in a group and what numbers were likely to join in. The abstract start of “snow clearing” turns to decision-making algorithms.

The lecture finished with Dr Andrews explaining that the research and equations he had derived had been used by the government in helping them with policy-making on incentive schemes for businesses moving their car fleets to greener alternatives.

It was good for the students to explore a new and different aspect of Mathematics and how this can be applied to real-life situations.