Economist and mathematician Reinhard Selten, who made a tremendous contribution to the field of game theory, has passed away at the age of 85. He is the only German to have ever received a Nobel Prize in economics.
The renowned professor died on August 23 in the western Polish city of Poznań, the University of Bonn said Thursday.
Selten was one of the “most prominent German scholars with great international reputation,” said Michael Hoch, the rector of the university where Selten had worked until recently. He will always remain in the university’s memory, Hoch added.
Born in 1930 in Wrocław, Selten studied mathematics in Frankfurt and later worked as professor in Berlin and Bielefeld before moving to Bonn in 1984.
For his work on game theory, Selten shared the 1994 Nobel Prize with US professors John Harsanyi and John Nash, who was depicted in the 2001 film “A Beautiful Mind.”
Selten was also a pioneer of behavioral economics. At the University of Bonn, he set up the BonnEconLab, a laboratory to conduct economic experiments.
sri/cjc (University of Bonn, AFP)
