Put a dozen random people in a trading experiment, and the price finds equilibrium anyway
Economic theory predicts markets converge on the price where supply meets demand, but Vernon Smith wanted to check it with real people instead of equations. He gave lab participants secret cost and value limits and let them shout out trades, and prices reliably settled near the theoretical equilibrium within minutes — even though no trader knew the overall supply and demand curves. The result helped found experimental economics and won him a Nobel Prize in 2002.