Introduction

It was summer 1948, at the intersection of 4th St. and Broadway in Santa Monica, California. The building was formerly the office of the Evening Outlook newspaper, and one would have had to look closely to notice the new doors and locks, and the security guard. Inside, more than forty people had gathered for a seminar, one of many in the building that summer. All eyes were on von Neumann, his dark suit appearing even more conspicuous in informal California. The discussion was about the duels between two fighter aircraft, and, describing a game with a continuum of strategies and a discontinuous payoff function, somebody had asked von Neumann if he could prove that it had no solution. After his habitual minute staring into the mid-distance, von Neumann turned to the board, talking and writing quickly, the eraser, as always, never very far behind.