Run for the blonde!

If you have seen the movie A Beautiful Mind, then you probably remember the bar scene where John Nash muses aloud about what happens when everyone goes for the blonde.

This episode was supposed to illustrate Nash Equilibrium, a concept named after Nash, who received the Nobel prize in Economics in 1994 for his work in the field of game theory.

Of course, it takes about 5 lines to explain why the example is faulty, and every undergraduate who has taken a basic game theory course should be able to do it. The surprising part is the massive reaction this little scene has caused on the Internet: the comments vary from tongue-in-cheek George Clooney references to a 12-page scientific paper. Panic!