check
GAME THEORY AND MATHEMATICAL ECONOMICS RESEARCH SEMINAR: Ron Peretz, Bar Ilan University: "The Rate of Innovation Diffusion in Social Networks (joint with Itai Arieli, Yakov Babichenko, and Peyton H Young)" | Einstein Institute of Mathematics

GAME THEORY AND MATHEMATICAL ECONOMICS RESEARCH SEMINAR: Ron Peretz, Bar Ilan University: "The Rate of Innovation Diffusion in Social Networks (joint with Itai Arieli, Yakov Babichenko, and Peyton H Young)"

Date: 
Sun, 15/04/201813:30-14:30
Location: 
Elath Hall, 2nd floor, Feldman Building, Edmond Safra Campus
New technologies often take a long time to gain general acceptance after they have been invented. This phenomenon is called “diffusion of innovation.” It has been studied in various social science disciplines at least since the midst of the 20th century. Previous theoretic investigation used martingales to study the rate in which innovations diffuse. We apply a different approach known as the coalescing duality of linear voter models. Our approach allows us to derive uniform upper bounds on the rate of innovation diffusion that were unachievable with the previous martingale techniques.

As a teaser I will present a solution to an old puzzle: n individuals hold n different opinions. Each day a random individual approaches another random individual and the former convinces the latter with his opinion. What is the expected number of days until they all hold the same opinion. A solution can be found here: A Colorful Urn. However, the solution is based on the coalescing duality approach, as will be shown. 

Joint work with Itai Arieli, Yakov Babichenko, and Peyton H Young.