There is a very deep ocean of information relating to game theory.  In sticking with my theme of relating classic examples back to class topics, I found an amazing game theory website.  gametheory.net has an amazing depth of information and is a great resource for all game theory topics.  If one were interested in combinatorics, they could even play Nim through the site.  However, more importantly is a set of links to very many game theory outlines at various universities throughout the country.  If any students in the class are interested in hearing the material from class in a different perspective, follow the student links to the “Lecture Notes” section to hear what a variety of leaders in the field are teaching.  One thing I would like to address in this blog, is the popular press section. 

 http://www.gametheory.net/News/Items/117.html 

That is one article from Discover Magazine which covered the research of a CalTech economist researching irrationality of behavior in game theory.  While in class, we assume that everyone behaves rationally and follows our basic mathematical models; often real-world results are confounded by the irrationality of people.  Information cascades may not form where they should because people might choose to go against the signals received purely to go against their signals.  This is not rational, but it happens.   Another thing I would like to point out, is from the Schelling book when he discusses equilibrium and such in the first few chapters.  While the economic perspective of a beach may dictate that people go until the beach is so crowded that noone else wants to go, this is not socially optimal in many situations.  Situations often rely on the rationality and the irrationality of people equally.  Like with the opening story about the students filling in the back of the auditorium, we see that the students were achieving an optimum, an irrational optimum.  Often, it helps to look (as the researcher from the article above did) at the data of irrationality as much as the data which confirms the rational behavior.   There are many other resources on this site, and I highly recommend it for students in this class and anyone interested in Game Theory.