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Glite Dictionary
Nash equilibrium

Nash equilibrium

1 9.4
A situation where no player can gain by changing only their own choice while others keep theirs the same
  • noun
  • /næʃ ˌiːkwəˈlɪbriəm/
  • Specialized
: equilibrio de Nash
  • Every Nash equilibrium is a fixed point in the space of strategies, and it circumvents the infinite regress problem by imposing self-consistency as a defining criterion.

And it could be that that six player poker belongs to some class of games where approximating an Nash equilibrium through self play provably works well.

Examples

  • And so this Nash equilibrium is something that is quite surprising.

  • And it's quite easy to check that this is a Nash equilibrium because given.

  • All right, So the Nash equilibrium in this game are what?

  • Then you know the Nash equilibrium condition for that node U.

  • We want to actually see which of these Nash equilibria are subgame perfect.

  • The Nash equilibrium is the point at which neither team has an incentive to switch to a different lineup, as switching will result in an inferior outcome for the team that switches.

    Blog text (23)

  • Nash equilibria are self-enforcing; when players are at a Nash equilibrium, they have no desire to move because they will be worse off.

    Blog text (6)

  • The Nash equilibrium in this game (see Table 3) is the lower right-hand cell (7, 3.5), with low or no concessions by the banks and low or no adjustment by Peru.

    Academic text (1994)

  • Standard textbook results (Tirol 1989) from a simple model of Bertrand price competition show that a Nash equilibrium in prices will coincide with a competitive equilibrium.

    Academic text (1992)

  • In the game of chess, a Nash equilibrium occurs when both players choose their best strategies, leading to a stable position.

Surface Forms

Nash equilibrium singular
Nash equilibria plural

Morphology

Nash + equilibrium

This is an eponymous technical term: 'Nash' is a proper name and carries no general semantic cue for a B1 learner, while 'equilibrium' only gives a vague sense of balance. Knowing the constituents would not enable a learner to derive the precise game-theoretic meaning (no player can profitably deviate), so the expression is not compositional for typical learners.

Etymology

Nash equilibrium is named after John Nash, a man who studied how people make choices in games. Imagine players in a game who all pick moves and then stay still because if one person changes only their own choice they would do worse; that's why Nash equilibrium means 'no one can do better by changing only their own choice'.