Anatol Rapoport

Anatol Rapoport (born May 22 1911) is a Russian-born American Jewish, mathematical psychologist. He is one of the founders of the General systems theory. He also contributed to Mathematical biology and to the mathematical modeling of Social interaction and Stochastic models of contagion. He combined his mathematical expertise with psychological insights to the study of Game theory and semantics. Rapoport extended these understandings into studies of psychological conflict, dealing with nuclear disarmament and international politics.

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Rapoport was born in Lozavaya, Russia. In 1922, he came to the United States and, in 1928, he became a naturalized citizen. Rapoport initially trained as a musician to become a virtuoso pianist performing masterpieces by classical composers. He studied Piano, conducting and composition, at the Staatsakademie f?r Musik und darstellende Kunst, in Vienna between the years (1929-1934). However due to the rise of Nazism he found it almost impossible to make a career as a Pianist. He shifted career into mathematics, getting a Ph.D. degree in mathematics, under Nicholas Rashevsky, at the University of Chicago in (1941). After which he served in the United States Air Force in Alaska and India, during World War II. He returned to the United States and joined the Committee on Mathematical Biology at the University of Chicago (1947-1954), which was followed by his appointment at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (Stanford, California). There he pioneered in the modeling of parasitism and symbiosis, researching Cybernetic theory. This went on to give a conceptual basis for his lifelong work in conflict-and-cooperation.

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In (1954), Anatol Rapoport founded the Society for General Systems Research, along with the researchers Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Ralph Gerard, and Kenneth Boulding. Since (1970) He has been the Professor emeritus of Psychology and Mathematics in the University of Toronto, Canada. He is also the Professor for Peace and Conflict Studies.

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In 1981 he co-founded the international NGO Science for Peace, and in 1984 he created the famous Tit for Tat strategy for the iterated prisoner's dilemma tournament held by Robert Axelrod that year. He was recognized in the 1980s for his contribution to world peace through nuclear conflict restraint by his game theoretic models of psychological conflict resolution.

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