This is what Nobel Prize winner Prof. Oman said yesterday (Sunday) at a press conference at the Hebrew University
Avi Blizovsky
While in the world much emphasis is placed on solving specific conflicts, not enough has been done to understand the essential causes that cause conflict, Prof. Israel Oman, winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Economics, said today.
The words were said at a press conference held today at the Center for the Study of Rationality at the Hebrew University of which Prof. Oman is one of the founders. The press conference was held in preparation for Prof. Uman's trip to the Nobel Prize ceremony to be held in Sweden on December 10. The Nobel lecture he will give next week in Stockholm will be called "War and Peace".
Prof. Uman believes that it cannot be said that war is irrational, since it has existed since the dawn of history. Therefore, according to him, the correct approach to conflict resolution is not to get to the bottom of each conflict individually, but to investigate the issue of war in general and from all aspects - including the rational aspect that game theory deals with. "Just as cancer researchers do not work to cure a particular patient, but they try to find the causes of the disease in general, so I believe that once we understand the war and its roots, we have already gone a long way to prevent it." Prof. Uman emphasized that his lecture at the Nobel ceremony will not refer to the conflict in the Middle East.
Prof. Uman told the press conference that all members of his immediate family, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren - 35 in number - will join him on the trip to Stockholm, in addition to the members of his "scientific family".
According to Prof. Uman, the organization of the trip and the special arrangements involved in it robbed him of precious time. For example, he told about one of the problems that arose due to the tuxedos that all men of all ages were required to rent for the ceremony. Being a man of faith, Prof. Oman asked to make sure that the rented suits did not contain "shatanz", which is a mixture of wool and linen, which is forbidden according to the Torah. For this purpose, a suit was specially flown from Stockholm and tested in the Shatanz testing laboratory. Since Shatanz was indeed found in a suit, all the suits intended to be worn by the family were handed over for treatment.
"I still teach, still meet with students and try to continue my normal life as much as possible. Organizing the trip and the many interviews are time-consuming, but I am a person who does not like to cancel things that were planned in advance," Prof. Uman concluded.
