Mr Harsanyi, who shared a Nobel prize in 1994 with two other economists in the same field, John Nash and Reinhard Selten, was happy to acknowledge that game theory had been around in some form for a long time.

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The Iraqis recently held their second national election that the world all agreed was legitimate, and although it is taking a long time to form a government, I am convinced that this will happen soon.

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"It's a little worrying doing so well at the World Championships because it's too long a chunk of time to hold your peak form, but it's not enough time to come down and re-train, " he explained.

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For a long time, software was considered by patent law as a form of applied math.

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Paris clamped down hard, for a long time making it nearly impossible for independent stock companies to form, while London was far less restrictive.

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While they might persist for a long time, even a century, over time they have repeatedly switched from one form to another, typically when the money owed in one system becomes so large that the denomination must be altered to meet the obligation.

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