Classic RAND Papers
rand.org
rand.org
I love Space Technology textbooks from the 1960s. Largely because the physics and math of orbital mechanics can still be provided for good simulations.
Not sure if the same holds true for Game Theory apart from historical interest.
For a better introduction see Networks, Crowds and Markets:
[0]<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann%E2%80%93Morgenster...
[edit added] And yes, I do get there were a lot of projects RAND was involved in that people could reliably and reasonably dislike or find highly objectionable. For me, as important as that is, it doesn’t change the historical significance and importance (and interest) of the work RAND did, both good and bad.
Seeing analytic techniques applied across competitive games was a revelatory moment for high-school-me, in the mind-candy sense. In an odd way, learning to try to wrap math around human activities shaped how I approached programming for a long time. Not that I was trying to apply game theory to programming, rather the general approach of thinking about the world as a sort of meta-word-problem. Wish I had started trying to get rid of that habit earlier.
Is it really true that people in the sixties thought that interstellar travel is 'just around the corner' as claimed in the blurb to the book? I mean RAND sold this book as a product for serious people.
You’re absolutely right. I was little when I talked with her, but my parents would surely say she would have completely accepted interstellar flights as the next thing.
While in principle and reason enormous achievements and progress are within reach of private enterprise, the 20th century was not dominated by reason and freedom, to say the least.
[1] http://www.astronautix.com/v/vonbraunmarpedition-1969.html
If that was the prevailing opinion, it's easy to see how the interstellar flight could be seen as around the corner after the conservative predictions were all put to shame.
Kinda makes one want to draw parallels with the 'singularity' and AI.
Had you described this to me in conversation, I'd have been incredulous.
Timeless classics. If only we were taught etiquette about electronic messaging like this in 2018.