HISTORY, SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY 64 First Edition Of Nash’s Doctorial Thesis 72NASH, John. “Non-Cooperative Games.” IN: Annals of Mathematics, Second Series, Volume 54, Number 2, pp. 286-95. Princeton, 1951. Large octavo, original gray paper wrappers expertly respined. Housed in a custom chemise and clamshell box. $8800 First edition of the complete issue containing Nash’s doctorial thesis—including a clarification of the “Nash equilibrium” he introduced the year before—a significant contribution to game theory and economics, work for which he was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. Nash’s doctoral thesis had an enormous impact. As a graduate student at Princeton, Nash encountered game theory, which had been recently articulated by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern. While their theory dealt with two-person zero-sum games, or “pure rivalries,” Nash explored rivalries with the possibility of mutual gain, in which each player acts independently and no outside authority enforces predetermined rules. His idea that any game such as this has one equilibrium point became known as the “Nash equilibrium,” a founding concept in analyzing economic behavior, and the one for which he won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1994. Faint owner signature to front wrapper. About-fine condition. “In A Single Shot Jacobi Did The Unexpected”: Rare Gelatin Silver Print Of Einstein, Signed By Lotte Jacobi 73 (EINSTEIN, Albert) JACOBI, Lotte. Photograph signed. Einstein. Deering, New Hampshire, circa 1975. Gelatin silver print (7 by 9-1/2 inches), signed on lower corner of print recto, framed, measures 14-1/2 by 17 inches. $7500 Gelatin silver print of Einstein, signed by Lotte Jacobi, a unique proof impression of her famous 1938 image of Einstein seated in a rumpled leather jacket. “In 1938 Albert Einstein had been contacted by Life magazine, and he agreed in principle to sit for a ‘photo story.’ His only stipulation was that ‘Miss Jacobi’ be the photographer” (Schuyler, Lotte Jacobi). “Clad in a leather jacket, buttoned neatly to his neck, with his signature disheveled hair, Einstein is captured in a private moment, deep in thought… Nothing in the composition prompts viewer reverence or betrays deferential treatment by the artist. Rather, in a single shot Jacobi did the unexpected: she humanized a man whom America and the world revered… [This] did not fit the narrowly defined standards of commercial photography, which was more interested in promoting the celebrity of the sitter. For this very reason Life magazine, which had commissioned the Einstein assignment, decided not to publish this… “ (Sundstrom, 2). A fine signed print.
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