On May 23, 2015, New Jersey police issued a traffic accident report with fatalities.
A taxi driver carrying an elderly couple tried to overtake on the highway, lost control and crashed into a bump stop. The person responsible for the accident received non-life-threatening injuries and was taken to the hospital.
Passengers who were not wearing seat belts were thrown out of the cabin by the impact. Doctors who arrived at the scene of the accident confirmed the death of both.
The dead were 86-year-old.
John Nash, whose name became a legend first in the scientific world and then among the general public, had an amazing life full of dramatic twists, into which his peaceful death in his own bed did not fit in any way. The higher powers obviously took this into account...
From hate to love - one book
John Nash and his wife Alicia. 2002 Photo: Reuters
John Nash was born on June 13, 1928 in Bluefield, West Virginia, into a strict Protestant family. John's father worked as an electrical engineer, his mother, who worked as a teacher before her marriage, changed her career to become a housewife.
Nobody saw signs of a genius in little John - an ordinary boy who prefers street games to lessons.
He was an average student, and especially did not like... mathematics. The teacher seemed to instill in his student an insurmountable disgust for his subject.
But at the age of 14, John came across the book “Creators of Mathematics.” The teenager became interested in reading and, unexpectedly for everyone, discovered incredible abilities.
“After reading this book, I was able to prove Fermat’s little theorem myself, without outside help,” the scientist later wrote in his autobiography.
Surprisingly, when John entered the Carnegie Polytechnic Institute, he did not initially consider mathematics as his vocation. At first he tried to find himself in chemistry, then in international economics, and only then came to the conclusion that mathematics was closest to him.
"This man is a genius"
From the Carnegie Institution in 1947, 19-year-old John Nash graduated with bachelor's and master's degrees and a letter of recommendation from a teacher that said it all: “This man is a genius.”
He attended Princeton University, where he first heard about game theory, which captured his imagination. 20-year-old Nash lays down the foundations scientific method, which will have a huge impact on the global economy.
In 1949, the 21-year-old scientist wrote a thesis on game theory, for which he would receive his main award several decades later.
Nash was completely immersed in his work, releasing one after another of works on game theory.
Colleagues recognized his genius, but at the same time treated him without any sympathy. John seemed to them a gloomy, uncommunicative, withdrawn, arrogant and selfish type.
Nobody guessed that these were not character traits, but signs of an approaching illness.
In 1951, Nash joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His new works deserve very high marks, but his colleagues stay away from John himself. It's not just John's sullenness and selfishness - his work mathematically proved the correctness of Karl Marx's theory of surplus value. During the notorious “witch hunt”, such “communist heresy” was fraught with loss of work, or even criminal prosecution.
At this time, Nash had problems in his personal life - his girlfriend, nurse Eleanor Stier, left him. There is no consensus on why this happened - some say that Eleanor could not stand John’s cold and arrogant attitude, others say that the girl was afraid of problems with the authorities because of Nash’s “communist” research. Be that as it may, at the time of the breakup, Eleanor was expecting a child. The scientist did not give his surname to his born son and also did not help his mother financially.
Destructive "voices"
The scientist has a new romance with the beautiful student Alicia Lard. John won the heart of the girl, who was not stopped by the strange behavior of the scientist. In 1957 they got married.
It seemed that John Nash's life had finally improved. Popular science magazines called him “the rising star of American science,” Alicia was expecting a child.
But the strangeness in John’s behavior increased - he heard voices that no one else had heard, he began to talk about some “secret information” and a “conspiracy against America.” It soon became clear that the mathematician was showing all the symptoms of schizophrenia.
What was it like for a 26-year-old woman to experience this in the last months of pregnancy? Alicia desperately tried to help her husband overcome the disease, hiding it from others, but soon this became impossible - John’s behavior spoke for itself.
In 1959, Nash lost his job - the mentally ill genius seemed to employers to be too unreliable an employee.
Family life, work, science - everything went downhill. Nash was forcibly hospitalized in a private psychiatric clinic, where he was given powerful drugs for 50 days. Nothing good came of this - the pharmacological effect only worsened Nash's condition.
"Phantom" from Princeton
The scientist decided to leave for Europe. Alicia, leaving her newborn son with her family, went to pick up her husband. John rushed around Europe, asking for political asylum, but was refused everywhere. On the one hand, Europeans were alarmed by Nash’s condition, on the other hand, pressure was exerted by the US authorities, who did not want the abnormal, but still genius, to leave their sphere of influence.
Nash was eventually arrested in France and deported to the United States. The scientist finally went into the world of illusions - his words and notes looked like incoherent nonsense, yesterday’s colleagues listened to him solely out of compassion.
In January 1961, John's exhausted family again admitted him to a mental hospital, where he was given a harsh course of insulin therapy.
After discharge, Nash goes to Europe again, but without Alicia - unable to bear it, the wife filed for divorce. She will raise their common son alone. The talent of mathematics and schizophrenia will be passed on to the son from his father.
Those colleagues who had the courage not to refuse to support Nash managed to find a psychiatrist for him who managed to stabilize the scientist’s condition.
For several years he returned to a relatively normal life, but then another breakdown followed.
By the early 1970s, what was left of the former “Rising Hope of America” was a strange man in shabby clothes, who sometimes could not find a place to sleep. In this situation, John was saved ex-wife, who took him in.
For many years to come, Princeton students called him "the Phantom" - he would suddenly appear in the classroom and write down formulas on the boards that only he could understand.
“Sound mind limits connections with space”
In the 1980s, when everyone began to forget about John Nash as a working scientist, something that no one expected began to happen. The mathematician began to return from the world of illusions and hallucinations, his speeches became more and more meaningful, and the formulas on the boards became not the ravings of a madman, but the thoughts of a brilliant mathematician.
The doctors shrugged their shoulders and shrugged their shoulders. John Nash, incomprehensible to them, managed to win the fight with schizophrenia.
"I think if you want to get rid of mental illness, then we must, without relying on anyone, set a serious goal for ourselves. Psychiatrists want to stay in business,” the mathematician later wrote.
Nash focused on math and soon returned to his pre-illness level. “Now I think sensibly,” the scientist wrote, “but this does not give me the feeling of happiness that any recovering person should experience. A common mind limits a scientist’s ideas about his connection with the cosmos.”
In 1994, the Nobel Committee awarded John Nash the Economics Prize "for his analysis of equilibrium in the theory of non-cooperative games." Nash's work, created in 1949, was awarded the Nobel Prize.
John Nash was not given the laureate's traditional lecture. Organizers feared that Nash's condition would turn the event into an embarrassment.
Mathematician and superstar
In 1998, American journalist and Columbia University economics professor Sylvia Nasar wrote a biography of John Nash entitled A Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash. The book became a bestseller and attracted the attention of Hollywood producers.
In 2001, the film A Beautiful Mind, based on the book, was released, in which John Nash played the role Russell Crowe. The film was a resounding success - with a budget of $58 million, it grossed $313 million at the box office, and was also awarded 4 Oscars and 4 Golden Globes.
The cinematic story of John Nash was very different from the real one, which did not prevent him from becoming a celebrity not only in the scientific world, but also among the broadest sections of the population.
Also in 2001, after 38 years of divorce, John and Alicia Nash got married again.
John Nash immersed himself in his favorite mathematics, continuing his research.
In 2002, the Norwegian government established the Abel Prize in Mathematics. The award, named after the Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel, was conceived as an analogue of the Nobel Prize, which, as we know, is not awarded to mathematicians.
In 2015, the Abel Prize was awarded to John Nash for his contributions to the theory of nonlinear differential equations.
Thus, John Nash became the first scientist to be awarded both the Nobel and Abel Prizes.
This triumph was a brilliant conclusion to a great scientific career and an amazing life.
It is unlikely that John Nash himself considered this award as the final result. But fate had a different opinion...
Nobel laureate and just a very strong-willed personality John Nash is a scientist who formulated the foundations of a method that had a significant impact on...
American mathematician John Nash: biography, achievements and interesting facts
From Masterweb
11.04.2018 20:01Nobel laureate and simply a very strong-willed personality, John Nash, is a scientist who formulated the foundations of a method that has had a significant impact on the modern world economy. He received his main award for his work on game theory, which he published at age 21. But Nash’s genius coexisted with symptoms of schizophrenia, and a life full of sharp turns, unfortunately, did not include a peaceful death among his family.
The last chapter in the biography
Three years ago, on May 23, 2015, in the city of Monroe (Gloucester County, American state New Jersey) there was a car accident with fatalities. The taxi driver, having driven into the oncoming lane to overtake, lost control and a collision occurred.
The person responsible for the accident was taken to the hospital. He survived with minor injuries. But two passengers who were not wearing seat belts were thrown out of the cabin. Medics who arrived at the scene of the traffic accident pronounced both the man and the woman dead.
The dead were mathematician John Nash and his wife Alicia. The Nobel laureate died at the age of 87, and his wife died at the age of 82. Such was the death of a brilliant scientist, whose life was full of dramatic turns.
From hatred to life's work
John Forbes Nash Jr. was born on June 13, 1928 in Bluefield, West Virginia. His father was an electrical engineer, and his mother, who managed to work for 10 years before marriage school teacher, was now doing housework. Nash's family was strictly Protestant.
Little John was an ordinary child, showing no signs that he would win the Nobel Prize in Economics a couple of decades later. The boy preferred outdoor games to lessons, studied averagely, did not like exact sciences, and especially mathematics. The teacher literally instilled in his student a disgust for the subject being studied.
At the age of 14, John Nash came across the book “The Creators of Mathematics” by Eric T. Bell, a mathematician and author of science fiction books. The teenager became incredibly interested in reading. After reading the book, he was able to prove Fermat's theorem on his own. Nash would later write about this interesting fact in his autobiography.
After school, the young man entered the Polytechnic Institute (now it is a private educational institution- Carnegie Mellon University). There he did not consider mathematics at all as his vocation, but initially studied chemistry and international economics. Only after that John Nash decided to take up mathematics, since it was closest to him.
In 1947, nineteen-year-old Nash Jr. graduated from the university with a bachelor's and master's degrees simultaneously. His supervisor's letter of recommendation spoke for itself. Richard Duffin wrote that "John Nash is a mathematical genius."
"He's a math genius"
After graduating from the Carnegie Institute, the young scientist entered Princeton University. It was there that he first heard information about game theory, which captured his imagination. At the age of twenty, he formulated the foundations of a method that later played an important role in the world economy.
In 1949, Nash published a dissertation on game theory. John Nash has found his life's work. Five years later, it was for this work that he would receive his most important award - the Nobel Prize. Officially, the award was awarded “for fundamental analysis equilibrium in game theory."
During 1950-1953, the scientist published four more works in the field of zero-sum games. They all became revolutionary. He discovered the possibility of a state of equilibrium, with all parties using a strategy that leads to equilibrium. This result was later called the “Nash equilibrium.”
In '51, John Nash began working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (better known as MIT). At this time, he wrote several works on the theory of varieties and algebraic geometry, which were highly appreciated by his contemporaries. He is the author of The Bidding Problem and Non-Cooperative Games.
Colleagues recognized the uniqueness of John Nash's knowledge, but the team did not like him. The young scientist was a genius, but he seemed to others to be a closed, uncommunicative, gloomy, selfish and arrogant person. But these are not his natural character traits, but signs of an approaching illness.
Another reason for the alienation of his colleagues was that his works proved mathematical methods loyalty to the theory of Karl Marx. Here we're talking about on the theory of surplus value. But these were the times of the “witch hunt,” when such communist sentiments threatened not just loss of work, but also criminal prosecution.
At the same time, John Nash had problems in his personal life, but more on that below.
A little about game theory
Not all readers understand mathematical theories, so a short explanation would be helpful. Game theory is a method for studying optimal strategies in processes that involve two or more parties fighting to realize their interests. This theory allows you to choose the best strategy, that is, the one that will lead to winning.
Methods for studying strategies in games most often find their application in economics, and somewhat less frequently in sociology, ethics, psychology, political science, law and other sciences. Since the seventies, it has been adopted by biologists who have studied animal behavior and the theory of evolution.
John Nash's theory is of exceptional importance for cybernetics, artificial intelligence and modern technologies. During and after World War II, the theory was of interest to the military, who saw it as a way to explore strategic decisions.
Personal life of an outstanding scientist
In 1951, John was abandoned by his girlfriend, nurse Eleanor Stier (according to another version - Stier). It is unknown why this happened. There is an opinion that the girl could not stand the arrogant attitude of her lover (it soon turned out that he was ill), and someone says that Eleanor was afraid of persecution by the authorities for Nash’s “communist” research.
Whatever it is the real reason breakup, all that is known is that Stier was expecting a child at that time. John Nash did not give his son his last name. In the future, he did not financially support the mother of John David Stier (Styer).
The heroine of the new novel by John Forbes Nash Jr. is student Alicia Lard. The girl was not stopped by the scientist’s oddities, and already in 1957 they officially became spouses. Life has improved. Alicia was expecting her first child, and popular science publications called John Nash Jr. “the rising star of American science.” But the strangeness in the man’s behavior increased.
Voices in the head and “secret information”
The scientist heard voices that no one else heard; he began to mention every now and then some kind of “conspiracy against America” and “secret information.” The mathematician began to show signs of mental illness. Alicia, a 26-year-old woman in the final months of pregnancy, sought to help her husband overcome schizophrenia, but John's behavior was very difficult to control.
In 1959 Researcher was fired. Everything went downhill. Nash was hospitalized in a clinic, where he was injected with powerful drugs for almost two months. But the pharmacological effect only worsened John Nash's condition.
Princeton Phantom
Then Nash decided to go to Europe. Alicia left her son with relatives, going to pick up her husband. John asked for political asylum in several European countries, but was refused everywhere, since the Europeans were concerned about his health condition, and the US authorities also exerted pressure. They did not want the genius to leave their sphere of influence.
Nash was arrested and forcibly sent to America. There's a scientist's state Once again worsened. His notes resembled incoherent nonsense, rather than the study of a mathematical genius. Yesterday's colleagues listened to John's ideas only out of compassion.
In 1961, he was again admitted to a psychiatric clinic. After being discharged from the hospital, Nash went to Europe again, this time Alicia remained at home. The scientist's wife divorced. She began to raise their common son alone. By the way, his talent for mathematics and schizophrenia were passed on to him from his father.
For a while, Nash returned to a (relatively) normal life, but a new deterioration followed. In the early seventies, all that remained of the brilliant scientist was a man in old clothes, who sometimes could not find a place to sleep. His ex-wife saved him. Alicia took John back and helped him, and in 2011 they got married again.
For many years, students at Princeton University called future Nobel laureate John Nash the Phantom. He received this nickname because more than once he suddenly appeared in offices and wrote down formulas on the board, the meaning of which was clear only to him.
Thoughts of a genius mathematician
In the early eighties, they began to forget about John Nash as a scientist who showed great promise, but it was then that something happened that no one expected. His notes and speech again became meaningful, and his formulas became not the delirium of a mentally ill person, but the thoughts of a brilliant mathematician. Doctors couldn't explain it, but Nash won his battle with schizophrenia. He simply began to ignore the voices in his head, and they gradually disappeared.
John Nash quickly returned to the level of science that he had before his illness. In 1994, the scientist was awarded the Nobel Prize. She was awarded the work created in 1949. By the way, Nash was not given the Nobel lecture. This interesting fact the organizers explained. They were simply afraid that Nash's health would affect the performance and something would go wrong.
“Beautiful Mind” S. Nazar
Four years after the award to Nash Nobel Prize Sylvia Nazar wrote a biography of the scientist. The work is called "A Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash." The book sold well and attracted many Hollywood producers.
Film "A Beautiful Mind"
In 2001, a film based on the book by Sylvia Nazar was released. Russell Crowe played John Nash. With a budget of 58 million US dollars, the film grossed 313 million. It was a stunning success. In addition, A Beautiful Mind was awarded four Oscars. Of course, the cinematic story differed from the real one, but this did not prevent Nash from becoming popular not only in scientific circles, but also among the general public. This film is worth watching not only for those who are interested in science and the personality of this scientist, but also for educational purposes.
Nobel and Abel Prizes
Interesting fact: John Nash became the first person in the world of science to simultaneously hold both the Nobel Prize and the Abel Prize. The Abelevskaya was established by the Norwegian government as an analogue of the Prize named after. Nobel for mathematicians. This triumph was an excellent final step in Nash's scientific career.
Some Nash sayings
Biography of John Nash - most interesting story, some of his sayings will help you understand it completely. For example, about the future:
I don't know what future awaits me. Even if I don't have much left. Of course, in general, the future is endless, unless something bad happens or a miracle happens.
About problems and solutions:
The problem is solved the moment it is posed.
Touching words about love, which may have become John’s confession to his wife Alicia:
I'm here today only because of you. You are the only reason for my presence. You are all my reasons.
A short dialogue about science, love and faith:
- Tell me, is the Universe great? - Infinite... - How do you know? - All the data point to this. - But this has not been proven, have you not seen it yourself? Why are you sure? - I’m not sure, I believe. - It’s the same with love...
About mathematics as an art and my attitude towards biologists:
Mathematics is a very specific science, it is a special kind of art, no matter what people around you tell you, especially those who study biology.
About questions and answers, the nature of genius:
Geniuses know the answer before they know the question.
The death of the great mathematician was a tragedy for science. During his long, but still prematurely ended life, he managed to do a lot. Perhaps, if not for illness, Nash would have been able to formulate even more important scientific theories, laws and develop several additional techniques. But there is also a possibility that it was precisely because of such a destructive predisposition to schizophrenia that he became a mathematical genius. It's a fine line. We can only hope that modern history will recognize more than one equally talented scientist, but with a calmer fate.
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His father was an electrical engineer, his mother a school teacher. At school, Nash did not show outstanding success, was withdrawn, and read a lot.
In 1945, he entered the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon) to study chemical engineering. Then he became interested in economics and mathematics.
He received his bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics in 1948, after which he began working at Princeton University.
In 1949 he wrote his doctoral dissertation on the mathematical principles of game theory.
In 1951 he left Princeton and took up teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While at the university, Nash developed a method of iteration, later refined by Jürgen Moser, which is now known as the Nash-Moser theorem.
In the early 1950s, he worked as a consultant for the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California, funded by the US Department of Defense.
In 1956, he won one of the first Sloan Fellowships and took a year's sabbatical at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. During this period he lived in New York, collaborating with the Richard Courant Institute of Applied Mathematics at New York University.
In 1959, Nash began to suffer from schizophrenia and severe paranoia, which eventually forced him to quit his job.
In 1961, at the insistence of his relatives, he was sent for treatment to Trenton State Hospital in New Jersey. After completing the course of therapy, he traveled extensively throughout Europe and was engaged in individual research.
By the 1990s, Nash's mental state had returned to normal and he received a number of awards for his professional work.
In 1994, the scientist was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his analysis of equilibrium in the theory of non-cooperative games. Nash shared the prize with Hungarian economist John C. Harsanyi and German mathematician Reinhard Selten.
In 1996 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
In 1999, for the embedding theorem proven in 1956, together with Michael D. Crandall, he received the Steele Award for seminal contributions to research, awarded by the American Mathematical Society.
The scientist continued to collaborate with Princeton University.
In 2015 he was awarded the prestigious Abel Prize in Mathematics for his contributions to the study of differential equations.
John Forbes Nash Jr. and his wife died in a traffic accident in New Jersey. According to preliminary data, the deceased were not wearing seat belts.
Nash has been married to Alicia Larde since 1957. In 1962, the couple divorced due to the scientist's mental illness, but in 1970 the family was reunited. The scientist left behind a son.
John Forbes Nash Jr. (English) John Forbes Nash, Jr.; genus. June 13, 1928, Bluefield, West Virginia) - American mathematician, working in the fields of game theory and differential geometry. Winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economics “for the analysis of equilibrium in the theory of non-cooperative games” (together with Reinhard Selten and John Harsanyi). Known to the general public mostly for Ron Howard's biographical drama A Beautiful Mind ( A Beautiful Mind) about his mathematical genius and struggle with schizophrenia.
John Nash was born on June 13, 1928 in Bluefield, West Virginia, into a strict Protestant family. His father worked as an engineer at Appalachian Electric Power, and his mother worked as a school teacher for 10 years before her marriage. At school I was an average student, and I didn’t like mathematics at all - they taught it in a boring way at school. When Nash was 14 years old, he came across Eric T. Bell's book, The Makers of Mathematics. " After reading this book, I was able to prove Fermat’s little theorem myself, without outside help."- writes Nash in his autobiography. This is how his mathematical genius declared himself. But that was only the beginning.
After school, he studied at the Carnegie Polytechnic Institute (now the private Carnegie Mellon University), where Nash tried to study chemistry, took a course in international economics, and then finally decided to take up mathematics. In 1948, after graduating from college with two degrees - a bachelor's and a master's - he entered Princeton University. Nash's institute teacher Richard Duffin provided him with one of the most laconic letters of recommendation. There was only one line in it: “ This man is a genius!» ( This man is a genius).
Scientific achievements
At Princeton, John Nash heard about game theory, then only introduced by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern. Game theory captured his imagination, so much so that at the age of 20, John Nash was able to create the foundations of a scientific method that played a huge role in the development of the world economy. In 1949, the 21-year-old scientist wrote a dissertation on game theory. Forty-five years later he received the Nobel Prize in Economics for this work. Nash's contributions have been described as follows: " For fundamental analysis of equilibrium in the theory of non-cooperative games».
Neumann and Morgenstern dealt with so-called zero-sum games, in which one side's gain is equal to the other's loss. Between 1950 and 1953, Nash published four groundbreaking papers that provided insightful analysis of non-zero-sum games, a class of games in which the winners' winnings are not equal to the losers' losses. An example of such a game would be negotiations on a salary increase between the trade union and the company management. This situation can end either in a long strike in which both sides suffer, or in the achievement of a mutually beneficial agreement. Nash was able to discern the new face of competition by simulating a situation that later became known as “ Nash equilibrium" or " non-cooperative equilibrium", in which both parties use an ideal strategy, which leads to the creation of a stable equilibrium. It is beneficial for the players to maintain this balance, since any change will only worsen their situation.
In 1951, John Nash began working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge. There he wrote a number of articles on real algebraic geometry and the theory of Riemannian manifolds, which were highly appreciated by his contemporaries. But John’s colleagues avoided him - his work mathematically substantiated Karl Marx’s theory of surplus value, which was then considered heretical in the United States during the “witch hunt.” Even his girlfriend, nurse Eleanor Stier, who was expecting a child from him, leaves the outcast John. So Nash became a father, but he refused to give his name to the child on the birth certificate, and also refused to provide any financial support to his mother in order to avoid their persecution by the McCarthy Commission.
Nash has to leave MIT, although he was listed as a professor there until 1959, and he goes to California to work at the RAND Corporation ( Research and Development), engaged in analytical and strategic developments for the US government, in which leading American scientists worked. There, again thanks to his research in game theory, Nash became one of the leading experts in the field of Cold War warfare.
Scientific works
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Add commentsA wonderful film, Beautiful Mind, is based on the life of John Nash. As in any work of art, the film contains discrepancies with the facts. At the end of the film, Nash receives the Nobel Prize and makes an unforgettable speech at the award ceremony in Stockholm. An elderly scientist who comprehended the secrets of mathematics and spent his entire life fighting a terrible disease - schizophrenia, says that he achieved everything in life because of love - his love for his wife Alicia and her love for him.
Nash never made this speech. The procedure for awarding the Nobel Prize in Economics does not involve speeches by the laureates, although the scientist then went to Sweden. In May 2015, Nash traveled to Scandinavia again. This time he was invited to Norway, where King Harald V on Tuesday presented him and his colleague Louis Nirenberg with the Abel Prize for their contributions to the study of differential equations. There, in Norway, the organizers helped the Nash spouses fulfill their dream of recent years - to meet and communicate with world chess champion Magnus Carlsen.
On Saturday, Nash and his wife returned to America and took a taxi home from the airport. The driver of the Ford they were traveling in tried to overtake the Chrysler, lost control and crashed into a road barrier. The Nash couple were not wearing seat belts and were thrown from the car and died on the spot. The driver was taken to the hospital, his life is not in danger.
John Nash was born on June 13, 1928 in a small town in West Virginia into an ordinary American family. My father is an electrical engineer, my mother is a teacher who quit her job after getting married and having children. Even as a child, Nash additionally studied mathematics and at the university, after a short-term passion for chemistry, he devoted himself entirely to this science. When he graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 1948, his mentor recommended that he pursue further education and research. The recommendation consisted of one sentence: “This man is a genius.” The talented young scientist was expected at Harvard, but he chose Princeton to be closer to his family.
It was at Princeton, as a 22-year-old boy (!), that Nash became interested in game theory and described the famous equilibrium, later called the “Nash equilibrium” in his honor. Nash proved that in any non-cooperative game (the so-called games where the exchange of information between participants is prohibited) there is a type of decision in which no participant can increase the payoff by changing his decision unilaterally, when other participants do not change their decisions. For a series of four papers on game theory, Nash received a PhD at the age of 22. History is silent about whether John's breakthrough in understanding game theory actually occurred when he was thinking about how he and his friends could better approach girls in a bar (so shown in the film), but most likely this is fiction. But it is definitely true that the basis of the GTO theory, which is now very fashionable in poker, is precisely the work of Nash, and pushbot situations are professionally analyzed only on the basis of the principles formulated by him.
He achieved great success in other areas of mathematics - his interests ranged from differential equations to singularity theory. In 2011, NSA (Agency National Security) declassified letters Nash wrote in the 50s of the 20th century - even then he foresaw many of the concepts underlying modern cryptography.
However, Nash's brilliant career encountered an unexpected obstacle. His first signs of mental illness appeared in 1954, when in the city of Santa Monica (California) for some reason he went to a gathering place for local homosexuals and there, roughly speaking, took off his pants. No charges were brought, but Nash was stripped of his top security clearance. For many years he was haunted by accusations of homosexuality (not confirmed by anything other than this case), the attitude towards which was far from being so loyal in those years. A dark spot on the genius’s biography was his relationship with nurse Elinor Steer - he left her after learning about her pregnancy, and refused to take financial part in the life of their son John David (the film “A Beautiful Mind” was later condemned for not mentioning this fact ). However, Nash soon found his personal happiness - in the university music library, he met a student named Alicia who had moved to the United States from El Salvador and married her in 1957. “He was very smart and very handsome,” Alicia recalled.
Unfortunately, in 1959, while Alicia was pregnant, John Nash's health took a turn for the worse. He developed paranoid fears - for example, all people in red ties seemed to him to be participants in a communist conspiracy. He also had other hallucinations, mostly audio ones; Nash did not actually have the visual hallucinations so vividly shown in the film. At one of the lectures, he began to say something unimaginable, and his colleagues realized that something was wrong with him. Alicia had no choice but to put her husband in the hospital; he was given a terrible diagnosis - paranoid schizophrenia. Nash lost his job and spent much of his time in private and public psychiatric hospitals. Like almost any schizophrenic, he denied his illness; He had to be forcibly admitted to the clinic, which could not but affect the relationship with his wife. Despite Alicia's incredible devotion to her husband (their child was unnamed for a year as she waited for Nash to leave the hospital and say what name he liked), they divorced in 1962.
Nevertheless, Nash's loved ones continued to help, although he could, after being discharged from the clinic, suddenly leave for Europe, leaving them in complete ignorance and only occasionally sending illegible telegrams. The scientist himself tried to help himself - realizing that he was sick (in the film this happens in one of the most powerful scenes - Nash understands that the girl who constantly appears to him is not growing up, and therefore cannot be real), he set himself the goal of rationally analyzing his condition and try to learn to cope with it. Over time, he succeeded - despite completely refusing to take antipsychotics, in the 70s his condition began to improve, and since then he has not been admitted to the hospital. His ex-wife at that time played a big role in improving the professor’s condition - she welcomed him home again and provided him with the opportunity to “live a quiet life,” which in her opinion was a key factor for recovery.
The famous scene "She never gets old"
Nash himself criticized the film based on his life for the fact that it main character- for playing this role, Russell Crowe received BAFTA and Golden Globe awards, and was also nominated for an Oscar - still takes some experimental medications. He blamed this on the screenwriter, who, it seemed to him, was afraid that mentally ill people under the influence of the film would refuse to take their prescribed medications, trying to imitate the hero of A Beautiful Mind. John Nash in his autobiography described his way of dealing with mental disorder: “Gradually I began to intellectually reject some of the illusory lines of thinking that had previously characterized my condition. Most notably, this began with the rejection of politically oriented thinking, since such an approach was a pointless waste of intellectual effort. Nowadays, it seems to me that I think rationally, as scientists tend to do. “I wouldn’t say it gives me the joy that anyone recovering from a physical illness experiences,” Nash continues. “Sound thinking limits man’s ideas about his connection with the cosmos.”
In the late 70s, Nash began to gradually return to work, and in the late 80s, he began to use by email to communicate with working mathematicians. They say that many of them were shocked to receive a letter from “that same Nash.” However, it was young colleagues who confirmed to the Nobel Committee that John Nash’s mental state had returned to normal, and awarding him the prize would not harm its reputation.
The outstanding scientist became known to the general public at the beginning of the 21st century. In 1998, journalist Sylvia Nazar wrote a biography of the scientist, A Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash; the book was highly praised by critics and nominated for the prestigious Pulitzer Prize. The book came across to producer Brian Grazer, and before he could finish reading it, he contacted the author and acquired the rights to the film adaptation. He involved screenwriter Akiva Goldsman in the creation of the film (it was he who came up with the idea of not explaining to the audience for the time being that part of what the main character sees is just a hallucination) and director Ron Howard. The casting turned out to be successful - an unexpected choice for main role Russell Crowe, fresh from starring in Gladiator, earned him his third Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a row; Jennifer Connelly performed brilliantly in the role of Nash's wife, Alicia. Film critic Roger Ebert wrote: “...Jennifer Conelly shines as Alicia. While Crowe has the larger role, it's Connelly's multifaceted performance as a woman torn between love and fear for the same man that elevates the film to new heights."
The film Beautiful Mind was liked not only by critics, but also by ordinary viewers - it grossed more than $300 million at the global box office - and received four Oscar awards, including in the main categories - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted script”, as well as for “Best female role Supporting Role" for Jennifer Connelly.
Despite the excitement, the Nash couple continued to live an ordinary “quiet” life. In 2001 they got married again. "We thought it was good idea. After all, we’ve been together most of our lives,” said Alicia. They watched their favorite series “Doctor Who” together, John studied science to the best of his ability, continued to travel with lectures and receive awards around the world; Alicia provided for the life of her brilliant husband and their son, John Charles Martin Nash. Unfortunately, the family was not spared a repeated drama - the son turned out to have the same illness as his father - schizophrenia. Last years The Nashes were actively involved in social activities aimed at preserving and developing programs to support people with disabilities. mental illness, which give such patients the opportunity to live outside of clinics. Alicia Nash explained her participation in this work simply: “When I’m gone, will Johnny have to live on the street?”
Alicia Nash was with her husband before last minute his life, confirming the validity of what Sylvia Nazari wrote in the book: “Nash’s genius is that he chose a woman thanks to whom he could survive.” Their son was less fortunate.
John and Alicia Nash are remembered around the world today. “We are shocked and saddened to hear of the untimely passing of John Nash and his wife and great champion, Alicia. John's extraordinary achievements inspired generations of mathematicians, economists and scientists who were influenced by his brilliant work in game theory, and the story of his life with Alicia touched millions of readers and film fans who admired their courage in the face of severe tests" said Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber.
“Rest in peace to the wonderful Nobel laureate John Nash and his wonderful wife Alicia. It was an honor to tell part of their story."