PHIL: Phil Wolfe
IRV: Irvin Lustig
IRV
How did you come to Princeton?
PHIL
Back in Berkeley in 1951, I slowly put together my work on the theory of games and included my work on degeneracy in linear programming as two parts of my doctoral dissertation. I got my doctorate in 1954.
Ed Barankin also helped with the other big stroke of luck in my career. He contacted Al Tucker at Princeton and recommended me for an instructorship there.
For several years, Tucker and his associates had been very much interested in the theory of games. I was one of the few potential instructors in the world who had done anything in game theory at the time. So, he hired me. I was there from 1954 to 1957. That was a terrific experience.
Lloyd Shapley worked for Tucker for couple of years as an instructor. Shapley, Al mentioned in passing, was second only to Von Neumann as the most important researcher in theory of games so far.
Shapley left to go to the Rand Corporation. Tucker needed somebody to help out with a number of small tasks and I happened to fit in that very well. So, I worked quite hard for him for three years. And developed a very long friendship that carried on to the end of his life.
Not far before the end of Al's life, I told him, for the first time, what attracted me to game theory, namely the story in Astounding Science Fiction. Al said, "Oh, yes. The author got the idea from a public lecture that I gave in early 1949. As a matter of fact, I've got a copy of the magazine. Would you like to have it?" I still have that copy. It was a wonderful closed circle.
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