{"id":98,"date":"2005-09-12T16:41:11","date_gmt":"2005-09-12T16:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alephnaught.wordpress.com\/2005\/09\/12\/a-beautiful-mind-the-life-of-mathematical-genius-and-nobel-laureate-john-nash\/"},"modified":"2005-09-12T16:41:11","modified_gmt":"2005-09-12T16:41:11","slug":"a-beautiful-mind-the-life-of-mathematical-genius-and-nobel-laureate-john-nash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/2005\/09\/12\/a-beautiful-mind-the-life-of-mathematical-genius-and-nobel-laureate-john-nash\/","title":{"rendered":"A Beautiful Mind: the Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content_div-98\">\n<div><font face=\"Helvetica\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/tg\/detail\/-\/0743224574\/qid=1126567983\/sr=2-1\/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1\/102-9495726-4240950?v=glance&amp;s=books\" target=\"NewWindow\">A Beautiful Mind: the Life of Mathematical Genius and<br \/>\nNobel Laureate John Nash<\/a><br \/>\n<\/font><br \/><font face=\"Helvetica-Bold\"><b>Author<\/b><\/font><font face=\"Helvetica\">:<br \/>\nSylvia<br \/>\nNasar<\/font><br \/><font face=\"Helvetica-Bold\"><b>Paperback<\/b><\/font><font face=\"Helvetica\">:<br \/>\n464<br \/>\npages<\/font><br \/><font face=\"Helvetica-Bold\"><b>Publisher<\/b><\/font><font face=\"Helvetica\">:<br \/>\nSimon &amp; Schuster (December 4,<br \/>\n2001)<\/font><br \/><font face=\"Helvetica-Bold\"><b>Language<\/b><\/font><font face=\"Helvetica\">:<br \/>\nEnglish<\/font><br \/><font face=\"Helvetica-Bold\"><b>ISBN<\/b><\/font><font face=\"Helvetica\">:<br \/>\n0743224574<\/font><\/div>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<div><font face=\"Helvetica\">When I saw the movie, I cried.  It was so painful<br \/>\nto see such a bright person&#8217;s mind become clouded, ensnared with schizophrenia<br \/>\nin the prime of his career.  I was a mathematician by scholastic training, and I<br \/>\ncould see how someone would start seeing patterns in things that were actually<br \/>\npatternless.  Loosing the ability to discern what&#8217;s real from the fake takes so<br \/>\nmuch away from ourselves.  Nash wrote a seminal paper applying game theory to<br \/>\neconomics, along with some other important mathematical proofs.  But, he became<br \/>\nschizophrenic, which, for a while, cost him his family and his job, along with<br \/>\nanything like a normal life.  He had two children, one of whom inherited his<br \/>\nillness.  Eventually, he says that he decided that what he was experiencing<br \/>\nwasn&#8217;t real and wasn&#8217;t pleasant, and so he started telling himself which things<br \/>\nwere real and which not; this is how he says he clawed his way back to sanity,<br \/>\nin time to collect a Nobel prize in<br \/>\nEconomics.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Helvetica\">Its obvious Nasar cares<br \/>\ndeeply about this story.  She has done painstaking research (as evidenced by the<br \/>\nnumber of notes at the rear of the volume).   She also helped publish Nash&#8217;s<br \/>\npapers (I saw that book at Borders this last weekend &#8211; guess I&#8217;ll have to slog<br \/>\nthrough some game theory at some point &#8211; haven&#8217;t done that in at least 20<br \/>\nyears).<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Helvetica\">Its a sad story but one that<br \/>\nshould be read by anyone interested in the ultimate strength of the<br \/>\nmind.<\/font><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"translate_block\" style=\"display: none;\">\n<hr class=\"translate_hr\" \/>\n<a class=\"translate_translate\" id=\"translate_button_post-98\" lang=\"en\" xml:lang=\"en\" href=\"javascript:show_translate_popup('en', 'post', 98);\"><span>Translate<\/span><\/a><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/google-ajax-translation\/transparent.gif?resize=16%2C16&#038;ssl=1\" id=\"translate_loading_post-98\" class=\"translate_loading colorbox-98\" style=\"display: none;\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" alt=\"\" \/>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Beautiful Mind: the Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash Author: Sylvia NasarPaperback: 464 pagesPublisher: Simon &amp; Schuster (December 4, 2001)Language: EnglishISBN: 0743224574 Translate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2w3Qj-1A","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}