Rating: 
Summary: A Beautiful mind is a beautiful Movie
Review: I saw A Beautiful Mind 3 times and each time I saw something I missed the first time. I think Russell Crowe was an excellent choice portraying John Nash. Ron Howard gives us a glimpse into the life of a man inflicted with schizophrenia and his battles with it and how it affected every one around him. You may want to take a kleenex with you, when you see this movie. All the actors played their part brilliantly and I smell an oscar for Crowes subperb acting skills in this movie.Mary S.
Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Book
Review: If you enjoyed the movie "A Beautiful Mind" you will love this book. It is far richer in detail, context, and let's us a bit deeper into why what Nash accomplished was so beautiful. If you find the movie a bit of a problem because it seems a bit too glossy for the facts, again, you will love this book. For me, the movie did a marvelous job of embodying the spirit of the book. To delve more deeply into the facts of Nash's life and accomplishments and his illness would require a documentary or a mini-series. The movie is really a narrative poem about Nash. This book is about the people and their experiences. It is NOT a direct exposition of Nash's technical achievements. There are other books such as "The Essential John Nash" that provide that information. In this masterful book we find out more about his youth, his life at college, his work after he received his doctorate and his breakdown and illness as well as the nature and scope of his recovery. There is real sorrow and loss in the book, but there is also strength and tenacity that refuses to yield to hopelessness and despair. This is a book about the people and how they lived during the storms of his achievements and his illness. I am not qualified to discuss the quality of Nash's achievements, but from the admiration lavished on him by his peers and how they rallied round him it is clear that Nash was given immense gifts that he developed and used in ways that have benefited all of us even if we are unaware it. It seems that this is the nature of the gifts scientists and mathematicians give us. We are unaware of them until another person makes them part of other products, services, and policies that directly affect us. And even then we are unaware of the breakthroughs that made these wonderful additions to our lives possible. We should be grateful to Sylvia Nasar for helping us see the gifts we received from Dr. Nash and the sacrifices his wife and others made to make them possible.
Rating: 
Summary: beautiful mind, rotten guy
Review: He was obnoxious. What redeemed him was a keen, beautiful, logical mind.
-Lloyd S. Shapley, The Lost Years of a Nobel Laureate (Sylvia Nasar, November 13, 1994, NY Times) It is simply the case that we treat extraordinary people differently than we treat average people. When it comes to beautiful women or gifted
athletes we tend to find this double standard appalling, yet when it comes to genius, we tend to accept it as something to which they are
entitled. This is the largely unacknowledged subtext that plays out in Sylvia Nasar's interesting but overlong, biography of Nobel Laureate
John Nash. A brilliant young mathematician, Nash stood out for both the quality of his mind and the unpleasantness of his personality even
within the eccentric world of academic mathematics. He developed an apparently well-deserved reputation for attacking problems from
unique angles, inventing his own ways of arriving to the already solved steps along the way, making intuitive leaps, which would only later be
proven, and deriving final solutions which seemed so improbable as to be impossible to colleagues. While still a graduate student at Princeton
he took up the study of game theory, which was in its infancy and which John von Neumann, who was at Princeton's Institute for Advanced
Study (as was Albert Einstein), had been pioneering--Nasar has some particularly fascinating detail about the board games that the students
and professors invented for themselves, one of which was actually called "Nash" because he invented it. His interest led him to come up with
an innovation called the "Nash Equilibrium" : Nash, in these early years, was rude, fanatically competitive, condescending, socially awkward, and prone to developing passionate crushes on
other men. Yet these behaviors--with the possible exception of his bisexuality--were generally accepted as the typical eccentricities of a great
mathematician--as if toleration of such usually intolerable behavior was no more than the price we all have to pay to bask in the presence of
genius. (Ms Nasar even proposes an interesting idea, that Nash's very lack of social skills may have helped him to come up with his theory of
equilibrium.) But Nash did alienate some people, both by the way he acted and just by being more gifted than they, and eventually some of
these personality aberrations did catch up to him. One of the most important instances as far as his career was concerned occurred when he
was working at the Rand Corporation in California (in 1954), but was dismissed after being arrested for indecent exposure in a Santa Monica
men's room. This was vital because it effectively barred him from most of the quite extensive work that government was funding under the
auspices of the Cold War. Maybe the most revelatory as far as his sense of entitlement was the child, John David Stier, he had out of wedlock
with Eleanor Stier, a Boston nurse who he may or may not have intended to marry at some point. Instead he married Alicia Larde, a beautiful
El Salvadoran MIT student, one of whose chief attractions certainly seems to have been that she made a more appealing accouterment to his
lofty career ambitions. The couple had a son, Nash got tenure at MIT and he continued to do exciting, breakthrough mathematical work (with partial differential
equations in particular), but he did not receive the formal recognition by which he was determined to judge the progress of his career
(including not winning a prestigious medal reserved for young mathematicians), and so began to take on more extravagantly difficult problems
: quantum theory in physics and Riemann's Hypothesis in the field of number theory. His study in these areas, which had perplexed
generations of scientists and mathematicians, refused to yield up the spectacular insights to which he had become accustomed. Meanwhile,
several personal crises cropped up, including a second pregnancy for Alicia and a bout of unrequited love for a younger and equally brilliant
mathematician, Paul Cohen. Whether the cumulative effect of all these stress-inducing factors played a role or whether the disease was
completely organic and developed at its own pace, in 1959, at age 30, Nash began to display increasingly clear symptoms of paranoid
schizophrenia. Among other manifestations, he became obsessed with the idea of world government and on a trip to Europe tried repeatedly
to renounce his American citizenship. So began a period of thirty years during which he would be in and out of mental institutions, enjoying periodic stretches of relative stability,
but largely disappearing from the academic world. Though friends and former colleagues did sometimes manage to secure him work, he
could not really return to teaching. And though he eventually wound up living with her, he and Alicia were divorced. In the end he was
reduced to wandering the streets of Princeton and the halls of the school, writing strange messages on blackboards and earning the nickname
"The Phantom of Fine Hall." Then, in the 1980s, with no more plausible explanation than there was for its onset, the severity of Nash's disease abated drastically and he
was once again able to interact coherently with others and even to do some mathematical work that made sense. So, just at the time--in the
mid-80s--that the Nobel Economics committee began considering awarding a prize for work done in the field of game theory, Nash began to
regain enough grasp on reality that he came to be a considered a serious candidate. In what may be the most fascinating portion of the book,
Ms Nasar details the absurd behind-the-scenes power struggles that went on in the Nobel committee, but in the end, of course, he did become
a Nobel Laureate in 1994. The arc of the story has so much natural appeal and Nash so exemplifies our perverse desire for genius to approach madness that the book
can't help but compel our interest. Yet, as I read I couldn't help feeling that Ms Nasar had fallen prey to the aforementioned double standard
in so far as her sympathy for Nash and her awe of his genius lead her to repeatedly excuse even behaviors that are not clearly related to his
disease. For instance, in discussing the firing from Rand, she says that the "...episode captured some of the most vicious currents of an
increasingly paranoid and intolerant era...." Yet, even if he was not already losing his mind at that point, one wonders what Ms Nasar expects
of the nation's Security services : that they allow such a manifestly unstable person to maintain a top secret security clearance? This seems
ridiculous. Similarly, when Nash is floundering around Europe trying to quit being an American in order to become a citizen of "the world",
she compares him to a character from Kafka, being tormented and thwarted by ann indifferent or even malevolent bureaucracy. But, one
hardly feels it should be necessary to point out, he was insane and no bureaucrat could have granted his demented wish. In fact, it appears
that several State Department officials bent over backwards to try and convince him not to continue to pursue such a lunatic course. Again, it
seems that Ms Nasar has become such an advocate for Mr. Nash that she has trouble seeing clearly the external implications of Nash's
behavior. In these episodes, as elsewhere, the book is too subjective. The lack of objectivity also, at least in my opinion, must have obscured to the author the rather off-putting nature of her subject. Many of
John Nash's friends and colleagues and his family deserve great credit for not abandoning him when he became truly ill and if he was actually
ill, though still functional, throughout his earlier years, then perhaps some of his worst behavior is somewhat explicable. But Ms Nasar does
not suggest that this was the case. In fact, she at least raises questions about whether Nash was ever clinically schizophrenic--though she cites
many indicators that lead her, and would lead us, to believe he was, including the fact that one of his sons also developed the disease. And
the sad truth is that before the onset of his schizophrenia John Nash was just not a very nice nor a sympathetic person. He treated other
people abominably. Were it not for his great mental acuity we would consider him to be merely an [expletive deleted]. So, while one
obviously would not wish madness on anyone, the supposed grand tragedy here depends for its effect on our obeisance to Nas
Rating: 
Summary: the rise and fall of a mathematical genius
Review: This book is a biography of John Nash, a nobel prize winner in economics. John Nash's story is interesting. As a fairly young man he made his contribution to game theory and economics. He then went on to important work for the military. Over time, however, he crossed the fine line between madness and genius and became a full-fledged schizophrenic. He was obsessed with astrology and numerology and haunted the campus of Princeton like a phantom. After quite a while, some of his symptoms came under his control and his important contribution was acknowledged by the Nobel Prize Commitee. This is a well written book with a great deal of insight into the nature of genius. My only caveat is that it may be a little slow for many people. Perfect for people interested in theories of intelligence.
Rating:
Summary: The man who was too sane
Review: For mathematician John Nash, developing a new theory of games was itself a game... one of the many he loved to play. He tackled such problems because he could, and others couldn't. Arrogant, emotionally immature as many geniuses are, his ability to produce totally novel, elegant solutions to ferociously complex problems bolstered his ego, established his place in the mathematical pecking order, and freed him from having to deal with feelings... his own and others. His was the exquisite joy, and loneliness, of pure thought for its own sake. But one of his mental "trick rabbits" -- a proof that multi-player, non-zero-sum games contain "equilibrium points" between "win" and "lose" -- was used to bolster the theoretical underpinnings of the West's Cold War strategy, an eventuality he hadn't foreseen, and which filled him with loathing. Terrified that he would be "drafted" by the US military/political establishment, he became an early advocate of a "one world" philosophy, fled to Europe and tried repeatedly to renounce his American citizenship. This was not permitted. Instead, his attempts were seen as prima facie evidence of mental illness. The American powers that be had him dragged back to the States against his will, and made it very clear that he would either put his mind at their disposal, or his mind would be destroyed. Every morning for six weeks, he was injected with insulin, causing him to lapse into coma as his brain was deprived of sugar and cells that were "functioning marginally" died off. This was one of several "tortures" ("interludes of enforced rationality" he later called them)he was subjected to, until, like Orwell's hero, he was eventually deemed harmless and released to haunt the halls of his beloved Princeton University, where he was known for many years as "The Phantom" -- a silent, bizarre, solitary remnant of a mind, wont to leave complex, virtually incomprehensible scribbles and formulae on various blackboards. But the essence of the man, the relentlessly curious core, had escaped, albeit into a kind of transcendental dream state, off exploring strange new corridors of the human soul and consciousness for almost 30 years. Only after 1994, when former colleagues, as a tribute to his "lost" brilliance, and perhaps from a mixture of pity and outrage at his fate, lobbied to have him awarded the Nobel prize in economics, did that core resurface in the "real" world... diffident now, almost timid, rediscovering friends and family -- an amazing "spontaneous remission," by all accounts. But the above story can only be read between the lines of economist and journalist Sylvia Nasar's painstakingly researched account of John Nash's life and times. It is never told explicitly, but is instead left to be gleaned from the countless letters, notes, documents, remembered conversations, medical reports and layman summaries of Nash's published work that comprise this massive, small-print, heavily referenced volume. Indeed, the elements of the tale... like the brief excerpts from Nash's awesomely sane Nobel autobiography, and the bare mentions that he had his own ideas about this or that subject (with no descriptions offered) ... are related almost in passing, the biographer devoting much more attention to her subject's complex (and arguably homosexual) emotional life. So we read all about the "special" male friends, the dull mistress who affirmed his
heterosexuality by giving him an illegitimate child, the bright woman who worshiped, wooed and wed him, and who stood by him (more or less -- they divorced, and he didn't speak to her for years after learning she had been responsible for several of his involuntary committals) through both the turbulent and the "lost" decades until, at book's end, their remarriage is described. According to the Boston Globe blurb on the back cover, the book is "superbly written." It is not. It is, rather, a workmanlike description of a life superbly lived. Excellent, enthralling reading.
Rating:
Summary: Superb! A Brilliant Biography!
Review: Out of all the biographies I've read, this is certainly one of the most disheartening. To watch the downward spiral of this mathematical genius (who solved problems thought to be "impossible" by most mathmaticians) is just sad. Nash not only makes a fool of himself by dramatically resigning his MIT post (after rejecting an offer from the University of Chicago because he was "preparing to become the emperor of Antartica"), but proceeds to travel to Switzerland, France, even Lichenstein, in the hopes of giving up his US citizenship to become "a citizen of the world." He manages to get deported from two foreign countries and is returned to the US only when it becomes necessary for the US Department of State to intervene. The absolute torture he put his wife and family through was almost unbearable to read. My overwhelming emotion while I was reading this book was bewilderment. It just seems impossible to imagine just what in the heck was going through his mind.
This biography, though, was brilliantly put together. Nasar has written a terrific book. Nasar is able to give a beautiful portrait of the world Nash dropped in and out of during his madness. The cut-throat environment at Princeton, MIT, and the rest of academia is described so well that I don't think it could possibly be described any better. The book is replete with anecdotes of those who knew him best: Marvin Minksy, Norbert Wiener, Oppenheimer, and even Einstein are all in the book.
I left the book with a particular newfound respect (if it wasn't already there) for Princeton. The patience with which Oppenheimer and the rest of the faculty at the Institute for Advanced Study treated Nash (during his 30 year long illness) deserves incredible praise. I doubt any other institution would have treated him so humanely, repeatedly offering him positions (over the course of many years) to try and make Nash a productive member of society again.
All in all this was a very rewarding read, and I particularly loved dramatic last few chapters. Two thumbs up!
Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Mind
Review: Excellent biography of Nobel Laureate John Nash, much better and more in-depth than the movie!
Rating:
Summary: Fermat or Leibnitz?
Review: I have not finished reading the book - which so far is very enjoyable - but I am worried about a quote that I read in the book. The author claims that Newton together with Fermat are credited as the co-inventors of differential calculus. I have always been under the impression that it was Leibnitz, not Fermat, who shares the credit with Newton; am I wrong?
Rating:
Summary: A Great Biography.
Review: "A Beautiful Mind" is not so much about mathematics as it is about ideas.
As a young man, John Forbes Nash, Jr. was compared by some to Einstein and other revolutionary geniuses. His ideas from the late 40s and early 50s became the basis for modern economics and some mathematics.
Nash was thinking of ideas that even other brilliant mathematicians could not imagine in a way that was usually elegant. In the space of ten years, Nash went from brilliant math genius to paranoid schizophrenic. It seems to validate the oft heard idea that there is a fine and brittle line between total brilliance and insanity. Nash's descent into a world of his own creation is harrow and other interesting insights into the nature of mental illness, its affects on the family and friends of the diagnosed.
Nasar presents some great questions. What is the nature of genius? Did Nash pay a terrible price for his genius? What circumstances may have caused his schiophrenia? What allowed John Nash to have a remission and seeming recovery after over twenty five years of active schizophrenia? Most fascinating was the debate among academics about Nash. Was he truly sane and could any honors be awarded to a "crazy man"?
Nasar presents all of the facts, including more than a few that are disturbing, and lets readers judge for themselves. The most interesting are usually those that are complex and centered on people who have mabny sides. John Nash is one such person and "A Beautiful Mind" is highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: See the movie first...
Review: This is a fascinating story, but not entirely the same story as the Russell Crowe movie. Both can be enjoyed, but if you read the book first, as I did, you'll be disappointed by the comparison. Writing is decent, but I entirely agree with other readers' criticism of the depth of technical detail.
|
