What do tic-tac-toe, international politics, and animal grooming behaviors have in common? Much more than you might expect. In this episode we’re going to talk about game theory, a field of economics that lets us analyze social interactions by treating them as multiplayer games, and then using math and science to understand the best strategies to win those games. This episode is the first part, where we will focus on four games: cake-cutting, the ultimatum game, coordination games, and the prisoner’s dilemma.