History of North America

The life of John Nash, a genius mathematician who became a model for the movie A Beautiful Mind

I just saw "Beautiful Mind".

As of June 2019, when this article is written, it can be seen on Amazon Prime, so if you haven't seen it yet, please take a look.

  • From the impression of Beautiful Mind
  • The life of John Nash
  • Thinking about John Nash's life

From the impression of Beautiful Mind

Before looking at the life of John Nash, I would like to go from the impression of the movie Beautiful Mind.

I was watching this movie without any prior knowledge. This is because when I finished watching the movie "The Imitation Game", it came out as an Amazon suggestion.

The Imitation Game was a story about a genius mathematician solving the Nazi crypto Enigma. Beautiful Mind also thought that a math genius was asked by the Pentagon to break the Soviet code and find out where the nuclear bomb was.

From here on, it's a spoiler, but it's completely different. John Nash wasn't asked by the Pentagon and was seeing events and hallucinations that weren't even complete schizophrenia.

This is partly due to the skill of the director, but since I was watching the imitation game, I think it's a big story that I thought it was a homologous story. Where is this movie going halfway? I couldn't take my eyes off. There is a sense of discomfort that something is ok, but I don't know what is ok.

In fact, John Nash was a military laboratory, and I thought he was a cryptanalysis professional, so it wasn't too strange to be asked by the Pentagon. But it started to go crazy when the Pentagon humans fought a shootout with Soviet spies. When I thought it was obviously funny, it was all John Nash's delusion.

And after I finished watching, no, I noticed something was wrong while I was watching. Although this is a movie, it was a story based on a true story.

John Nash won the Nobel Prize in the movie, but in fact John Nash won the Nobel Prize in 1994. I thought it was a ridiculous story.

John Nash's Life

John Nash was born in Virginia, USA in 1928. He is from the so-called middle class, where his father is an electrical engineer and his mother is a teacher. At the age of 17, he entered Princeton University of Technology as a scholarship student. Studied at Princeton University.

The testimonial for going to Princeton University said "He is a mathematical genius." That is, John Nash was a genius in mathematics. He originally majored in electronics and then chemistry under the influence of his father, but he also seems to have a talent for mathematics.

While attending Princeton University, he published a treatise on "game theory" and received a lot of attention. Unfortunately I don't know what game theory is, but it seems to be a theory that can be applied to all kinds of disciplines.

However, John Nash himself seems to have been more enthusiastic about studying the Riemann hypothesis than game theory.

Yes, that nightmare Riemann hypothesis.

I used to watch a documentary about the Riemann hypothesis that I used to do at NHK, but even I, who heard a lot of ridiculous stories about world history, was surprised. After all, all the world authorities in mathematics challenged the Riemann hypothesis and made their minds crazy.

When I think about it now, John Nash was one of the people introduced at that time.

Like the movie, John Nash has suffered from schizophrenia. He probably got into the swamp of mathematics. John Nash himself blames his lack of appreciation for his schizophrenia, his pressure on his research, and his lack of approval for more recognition. .. John Nash is said to have been obsessed with the grandiose delusion that he was the most important person in the world at this time.

What is different from the movie is that he is divorced from his wife Alicia after his onset, and that Alicia has a child who has never been married to her nurse.

Alicia seems to have lived with John Nash after her divorce, and she had her first marriage in 1957 and her second marriage in 2001. This form of remarriage is extremely rare.

Shortly before divorcing Alicia, John Nash's schizophrenia began to worsen around 1960, and he was often seen wandering around the campus, giving it the nickname "Fine Hall Phantom."

When his divorce from Alicia was decided in 1963, his symptoms worsened, and he was treated with drugs while being repeatedly hospitalized and discharged. The improvement was seen only after he began living with Alicia again in 1970, and was awarded the John von Neumann Award in 1978.

From around this time, his symptoms went into so-called remission, and he won the Nobel Prize in 1994 and the Steele Prize in 1999.

In 2015, after receiving an Abel Prize for research on the Riemann hypothesis, a taxi with Alicia had an accident and died with her beloved wife.

It was John Nash 86 years old and Alicia 82 years old.

Thinking about John Nash's life

What's really interesting is that the real evaluation began after John Nash was freed from the grandiose delusions and excessive desire for approval that he was the most important person in the world.

Honor and fame aren't what you want, but they may come as a result of your innocent efforts.