Rating: 
Summary: A Genius of a Man...in Search of 'Something More'
Review: This is a story of a genius of a man who is so caught up in world views and in search of 'something more' until he spirals into a "glut". I give this book a solid "A" (five stars). It was quite enlightening and opened my mind to new things. It's ultimately a learning experience. The book offers a person room for one's own intellectual vision. If you think you're a genius or 'want to be' more of a genius then you should definitely read this book for inspiration. It's a tribute to the importance of mathematicians. More than half of the book (Chapters 1-33) will focus on the genius of John Forbes Nash, Jr. Then, Chapters 34-46 focus on his schizophrenic downfall and "lost" state of mind. By the end of the book, (Chapters 47-50) John Nash Jr. starts to reawaken to the simple sides of life (flashback from the film, Awakenings). The sad part is that one of his sons is now dealing with his 'on & off switch' mind and John Nash, Jr. is the caretaker. It reminds us of the mystery of the human mind and how no ONE is immune to getting a distorted view of things. Balance in Life is so important. A great biography of a great man who knew & knows great things of which future greatness will continue to stem from.
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Summary: Well I never
Review: Personally I take offense at the last reviewer's indictment of "arrogance & insensitivity" in Nash's character. As an arrogant & insensitive person may I say you have my full permission to go straight to hell because I could think you under a table w/half of my brain tied behind my back.
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Summary: Linking advanced mathematics to an everyday world
Review: This book manages to deftly link the diammetrically opposed worlds of mathematics and mental illness in an interesting and accessible way. Although I never quite got through College Algebra, the mathematics/economics were explained so well that I felt I could understand them and hence, understand their vast impact on economic theory. Nash is a kind of super mathematics genius who is hobbled by his ever worsening mental illness; I found this to be fascinating, that he could be so close to greatness in such an obtuse field and yet, have trouble functioning on a daily basis. The book is very well written; although there are some narrative jumps when sometimes explaining things from the 3rd person, they are not as jarring as other reviews have made them out to be; I found myself completely engrossed by the material and rooting for Nash to get better; it is one of the few non-fiction books I will re-read for sheer enjoyment.
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Summary: A Beautiful Mind is a beautiful biography-
Review: A truly amazing biography that brings to light what no one truly saw in his lifetime... the amazing mind of mathematical genius John Forbes Nash, Jr. This in-depth account helps the non-genius understand what genius is while it enlightens the reader as to how someone can succumb to madness. Along the way, Sylvia Nasar offers the reader snapshots of the lives that surrounded Nash, some of the greatest minds of all-time that helped to shape the 20th century and the world we live in. You do NOT have to be a mathematician to appreciate this passionate biography.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Read
Review: This book is not just for mathematicians or those in the field of hard sciences - but for anyone who wants to have some clarity on certain aspects of life itself. Sylvia Nasar manages to write about the life of John Forbes Nash, a mathematician, from his college years which began in 1948, to his years of maturity and ends the book in 1997. She tells a very important story that captures the organizational culture of math departments throughout colleges and universities across the country, homosexuality during the McCarthy era, mental illness and the recovery of mental illness, relationships and the importance of them, as well as mathematical theorems - how they developed and the use of them. This book sheds some light on why mathematicians set themselves apart from other disciplines. Her story does not only belong to Nash but to many other mathematicians whose story was similar. Read this book if you are interested in what contributes to scientist going "mad." It lends credence to the term the "zany professor."Also, if you really pay attention, you can figure out how mathematical equations apply to everyday life...and how many decisions in the political and economic arena are not made unless the situation is applied to a mathematical equation. We are introduced to the game theory and how Nash modified the theory by introducing equilibrium points. All games do not have to end up with a winner and a loser, especially if cooperation is introduced, according to Nash. The scientific jargon gets ever so boring as we read through several chapters on the military's dependence on academia in an effort to be competitive with Russia back in the 1950s and 1960's. The author introduces the reader to every mathematician Nash ever read about, worked with and admired. We are inundated with names and theorems that many readers will never encounter again unless a mathematician. Nasar is very wordy almost as though she has the inability to get to the point. The book is laced with trivial background information on people who were insignificant to the story Nasar is attempting to narrate. While the book is easy to put down, it is also easy to pick up again. Something keeps drawing you to Nasar's written pages. By the time I got to the end of the first full paragraph on page 362, I wept. I wept because Nash was questioning whether it was okay for him to eat in the faculty cafeteria at Princeton....a place where he had eaten many times as an established mathematician, a place where he learned, taught others, and oftentimes held court. I wept for Nash and others like him....for the turmoil that a mental illness takes one through and how people react to those who are mentally imbalanced. The most profound sentence in the whole book is on the front page in which Nasar quotes Nash, a mathematical genius, explaining why he thought aliens from outer space were giving him secret messages. Nash responds, "....the ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me the same way that my mathematical ideas did. So I took them seriously." Read this book if you have the time. No rush.
Rating: 
Summary: A fair biography made memorable by an extrodinary subject
Review: An interesting study of a number of subjects: mathematics and economics, life in academia, schizophrenia, Nobel politics, and last but not least the complex personality of John Nash. Nasar's journalistic style does not make for spellbinding reading, but the subject is himself interesting enough that the book keeps the reader's interest through it's 450 page. To Nasar's credit, she strikes the perfect balance between in presenting the mathematical themes. She neither presents too little nor too much, and she does this in a way that allows lay readers to appreciate the elegance of Nash's discoveries. Nash is not always a likeable character, but he always fascinates. Nasar paints the supporting characters with enough realism and depth that the reader cares what happens next; the pages keep turning. A good science biography.
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Summary: Not so beautiful
Review: This is a poor biography of a brilliant man. Nasar's style is too journalistic, which isn't unexpected since she is a journalist, but as a consequence she lacks psychological insight and can't get herself nor us into Nash's skin. What truly cheapens Nasar's biography is that she directly pleads Nash's case for him at the end, claiming he is of a stronger character now than he was in his arrogant youth, although she recounts an appalling episode after Nash's recovery in which Nash expresses vicious opinions on his elder son. Nasar should have given us the facts and allowed us to make up our minds ourselves. I wish Nash and his family a peaceful life, if they will accept a stranger's blessing.
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Summary: A wonderful book
Review: The halls of Princeton university resonate with such names as Robert Dicke, Freeman Dyson, Robert Oppenheimer, Richard Feynman, John Archibald Wheeler, Hugh Everett, Marvin Minsky, Alan Turing, Ed Witten, John von Neumann, Albert Einstein, Walter Kaufmann and Thomas Mann. Yet another name which deserves to be mentioned in this prestigious pantheon is that of John Forbes Nash. This book tells his story. Nash is (he is still living) a mathematical genius who received his doctorate from Princeton and then went on to teach at MIT. As a human being, Nash leaves a lot to be desired. Unfortunately, unlike many other personages who have been endowed with a brilliant intellect, Nash was unable to refrain from engaging in megalomania. He was a pedantic Nietzschian elitist who was more than a little pompous & enjoyed talking down to people whom he knew were not his intellectual equal. Nash treated both the main women of his life with contempt and not surprisingy has not picked up too many close friends over the years. He also lacked a respect for the sacred art of pedagogy. He was recognized by both his students and peers at MIT as being a very poor professor who did not really care about his students. He also pulled some rather silly pranks such as including Fermat's last thereom on his undergraduate's final exam. His less than stellar character notwithstanding, however, what is not in dispute is his genius. He made several contributions to mathematics which are truly important. He solved what was known as the "embedding problem for manifolds" in geometry & also wrote extensively on Game Theory (for which he won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1994). What makes Nash's story remarkable is that he also suffered from schizophrenia. He reportedly showed up at MIT one day & professed that aliens from outer space were sending him encrypted messages that only he could decipher - in the New York Times. He also declared himself emperor of Antartica & sought asylum from NATO. During his intermittent stays in mental hospitals he became friends with the poet Robert Lowell, who was himself a patient (suffering from manic-depression). Later, Nash quit his post at MIT and wandered the campus of his beloved Princeton like a lost zombie. He became known to the undergraduates as the "phantom of Fine Hall." What caused Nash' mental illness is unclear. Genetics would seem to be a significant factor, given that one of his sons (who was himself a mathematical genius in his own right) also suffered from the disease - perhaps even more than Nash. Other contributing factors were likely his (failed) attempt to solve the Riemann hypothesis & his infatuation with the legendary John von Neumann. This is a wonderfully well written book. It is an extraordinary story of an exceptional man who fell into the depths of madness & later emerged to win the Nobel Prize. Nasar also offers a nice compass for the various enviroments Nash found himself in throughout the different stages of his life. Nasar provides a vivid background for each scene and siginificant person that Nash comes across. She also bequeaths detailed information on various institutions (such as the Institute for Advanced Study) of which I was not aware. I would recommend this book for anyone who is interested in John Nash, the history of Princeton or the thin line which separates genius and madness. One will find within these pages the tale of a man who crossed that line many times.
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Summary: Beautiful Mind...Ugly Person!
Review: John Forbes Nash's cotributions to math are undeniable. He was an extraordinarily original thinker with undeniable genius. I thought Sylvia Nasar did a first rate job in documenting his life- yet I walked away from the book feeling a little bit empty. I think the reason is that JFN Jr., extraodinary as he was, was pretty much a useless human being outside the world of math. He was extremely selfish and a pariah to his colleagues and fellow students. I found it hard to sympathise with his mental illness when he treated everyone with such disdain- before and after he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. In the end I closed the book and said "why should I care about this person." Call me old fashioned, but being a great mathmatician or scientist is more that just creating theorems or inventions- It's a matter of character..something JFN Jr. was completely lacking in.
Rating: 
Summary: Extraordinarily dull reading for such an interesting life
Review: "A Beautiful Mind" is promoted as the story of a brilliant mathemetician who overcame mental illness to win a Nobel prize in economics. This is misleading. He won the prize for work he had done 40 years earlier, in spite of his history of mental illness. This biography is no Rocky-of-mathematics comeback story. It's the dry, detailed, well-researched, yet ultimately superficial tale of a man who saw the world a bit differently, and yet the author gives us little sense of what it was like to be John Nash. She tells us what happened in his life, gives us the dates of the important events, and relays anecdotes, but never truly gives us a sense of what life was like for Nash. After reading the biography I feel that I know what he did, but not what he was truly like, and that is a disappointment.
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