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2011 Book Review #54: A Beautiful Mind
Title: A Beautiful Mind: The life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash
Author: Sylvia Nasar
Genre: Biography (20th C scientists)
Thingummies: 3
Synopsis: John Nash was an arrogant, up-and-coming mathematical genius who abruptly spiraled into paranoid schizophrenia. After decades of haunting Fine Tower in Princeton, he managed to recover just in time to recieve a Nobel Prize. He actually looks surprisingly like Russell Crowe, it turns out.
Thoughts: Nasar does an excellent job of reconstructing the life of a living subject who nonetheless can't actually explain large chunks of his own life. It's an interesting look into the world of mathematicians, of which I've kind of lived on the periphery. Watching the growth of a psychological illness and the devastation it wreaks on multiple families does give a certain amount of insight on the process of "going mad".
Unfortunately, the story is not as engaging as one might hope for. The biggest problem, really, is that young Nash is a complete asshole. It's unclear how much of his earlier behavior is linked to his mental illness--it feels wrong to condemn someone for actions that they could not control. But the decades before his official break are full of behavior that is otherwise inexcusable. Nash is arrogant, cold, and anti-social, a vicious prankster who belittles nearly everyone he comes into contact with. He feels teaching undergrads to be beneath him, despite the fact that that was what he was explicitly hired to do, and pretty much deliberately screws them all over. He gets a girl pregnant, refuses to marry her, insists that she name the kid after him, plays house, but refuses to pay her hospital bills or any child support. He's every caricature of a boy wonder geek, with hopeless social skills and an aggressive ego, stretched into ridiculousness.
Also unfortunate is the fact that the climax of this story essentially takes place inside Nash's brain, where we can't go. It's a story of redemption, in which someone who has always trusted in logic and his own mind is betrayed by both, and then slowly works his way out again. Because there's no way to truly convey this process, the author instead skims over decades and then lavishes attention on the argument over whether to give him a Nobel. (The intro to the book runs through the entire story, I suppose with the assumption that you've already heard it and the point is to fill in the details, so there's not much in the way of tension.)
Ultimately, it's a well-done piece, so I can't give it less than the 3. But I didn't find it to be truly entertaining or enlightening, so can't really recommend it terribly strongly.
Author: Sylvia Nasar
Genre: Biography (20th C scientists)
Thingummies: 3
Synopsis: John Nash was an arrogant, up-and-coming mathematical genius who abruptly spiraled into paranoid schizophrenia. After decades of haunting Fine Tower in Princeton, he managed to recover just in time to recieve a Nobel Prize. He actually looks surprisingly like Russell Crowe, it turns out.
Thoughts: Nasar does an excellent job of reconstructing the life of a living subject who nonetheless can't actually explain large chunks of his own life. It's an interesting look into the world of mathematicians, of which I've kind of lived on the periphery. Watching the growth of a psychological illness and the devastation it wreaks on multiple families does give a certain amount of insight on the process of "going mad".
Unfortunately, the story is not as engaging as one might hope for. The biggest problem, really, is that young Nash is a complete asshole. It's unclear how much of his earlier behavior is linked to his mental illness--it feels wrong to condemn someone for actions that they could not control. But the decades before his official break are full of behavior that is otherwise inexcusable. Nash is arrogant, cold, and anti-social, a vicious prankster who belittles nearly everyone he comes into contact with. He feels teaching undergrads to be beneath him, despite the fact that that was what he was explicitly hired to do, and pretty much deliberately screws them all over. He gets a girl pregnant, refuses to marry her, insists that she name the kid after him, plays house, but refuses to pay her hospital bills or any child support. He's every caricature of a boy wonder geek, with hopeless social skills and an aggressive ego, stretched into ridiculousness.
Also unfortunate is the fact that the climax of this story essentially takes place inside Nash's brain, where we can't go. It's a story of redemption, in which someone who has always trusted in logic and his own mind is betrayed by both, and then slowly works his way out again. Because there's no way to truly convey this process, the author instead skims over decades and then lavishes attention on the argument over whether to give him a Nobel. (The intro to the book runs through the entire story, I suppose with the assumption that you've already heard it and the point is to fill in the details, so there's not much in the way of tension.)
Ultimately, it's a well-done piece, so I can't give it less than the 3. But I didn't find it to be truly entertaining or enlightening, so can't really recommend it terribly strongly.
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Not as exciting as the other stories.
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I remember making further inquiries and was stunned and blown out of my little cheer shoes upon discovering that is thé DR. JOHN NASH, of the NASH equilibrium!!!!! I couldn't believe it! I studied Von Neumann and Morgensterns original and preliminary work that set the basis to Nash's contribution and even developed a small refinement myself...(too difficult to explain here, it has to do with certain types of Game Theory in certain applications of post-cold war warfare threat scenario's etc....) I just remember at the time thinking what an incredible waste of genius mental illness is! (Schizophrenia - dementia praecox)
Oh and BTW, he never "recovered" he, with the help of modern medications, finally got some control over the functioning of his brain, learned to adapt to and recognize irrational behaviour on his part and return to a semi-resemblance of functionality (as I understand it, he has returned to teaching grad classes...)
And as for his behaviour as a young grad student at P-ton, I had a roommate who claimed that his actions were in line with the majority of students, at that place, at that time, was within the norms prevalent then. Remember, he want for his Undergrad, where his illness first manifested itself, at Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburgh.
When I saw the movie, within the first few minutes I knew something was wrong! Single Grad students at Princeton DO NOT HAVE ASSIGNED ROOMMATES!! They all were (and are to this day) given private rooms in the Grad dorms, unless they choose to live off campus or in married student housing...