Sylvia Nasar was born in Germany and grew up in New York. He studied literature at Antioch College and a master's degree in economics at New York University. He then attended the School of Journalism Columbia University.
business journalist who has served on the editorial staff of Fortune and U.S. News & World Report, in 1993, while he was writing an article for The New York Times economy has encountered in the story of mathematician John Nash and the brilliant scientist was fascinated , ill with schizophrenia. We begin to investigate the life of John Nash, discoverer of the theorem of equilibrium, which is considered a major contribution to game theory. In this way The genius of numbers, a book half way between the biography and the novel, which won in 1998, when he left, the prestigious National Book Critics' Circle Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize the same year. Now famous throughout the world for the film version A Beautiful Mind, winner of several Academy Awards, The genius of the numbers is an international bestseller that has consecrated Sylvia Nasar among the most famous journalists of the United States.
Life of John Nash John Forbes Nash was born in Bluefield, June 13, 1928 is an American mathematician. The father, who was called by the same name, was a native of Texas and had an unhappy childhood, redeemed only by studies in engineering. The mother was Margaret Virginia Martin, before she married and started a career as a teacher. John Forbes Nash jr. already reveals a little lonely and bizarre character. Even his attendance
school has many problems. Some examples of those who knew him describe him as a little boy and singular, solitary and introverted. Also seemed to have more interest in books rather than the sharing of hours of play with other children.
The family atmosphere, however, was largely peaceful, with parents who showed him their affection. After a few years also will be born a girl, Martha. Thanks to her sister that John manages to integrate a bit 'more with their peers, even managing to get involved in the usual games of childhood. However, while the others tend to play together more often than John prefers to remain on his behalf. His father, then treat it as a adult, continuously providing books on science and intellectual stimulation of all kinds.
The school situation is not rosy at first. The teachers are not aware at all of his genius and his extraordinary talents. His lack of "social skills" puts him in a bad light in respect of colleagues and faculty. Nash was probably bored with school.
In high school, however, his intellectual superiority over the fellow serves primarily to obtain consideration and respect. Also received a prestigious scholarship thanks to a work on chemistry in which there was but also his father's help. He went then to Pittsburgh, to study its chemistry. Over time, However, his interest in mathematics is increasing more and more. This field displays of exceptional skill, especially in solving complex problems. Among friends, however, behaves more and more eccentric, and so are unable to establish friendly relations. Join the
Putnam Mathematical Competition, a coveted prize, but did not win: this will be a bitter disappointment, which I'll even after several years. In any case, it immediately shows a mathematician of the first order, so as to obtain offers from Harvard and Princeton to do a PhD in mathematics. Chooses Princeton.
Nash had great hopes from the start in maths. During his years of teaching at Princeton, Nash showed a wide range of interests in pure mathematics: topology, algebraic geometry, from game theory to logic. He wanted to solve a problem with his strength and his conceptual tools, searching for the original as possible approach to this issue.
In 1949, while studying for his doctorate, he developed the considerations that 45 years later made him win the Nobel Prize. During that period Nash established the mathematical principles of game theory game theory
.
Nash has revolutionized the economy with his studies in applied mathematics, is also a brilliant mathematician pure and refined. He always had a skill in dealing with uncommon problems from a fresh and unthinkable to others, and incredibly elegant solutions to complex problems.
Nash has lived for almost thirty years of scientific achievements, academic and mental illness. During the brilliant scientific work in prestigious universities such as Princeton University, or in companies such as RAND Corporation, where he and logical, mathematical, physical and experienced engineers, working for the government to Cold War political and military strategies. He had to live with schizophrenia often and for long periods during his life obscures the extravagance and creativity emotional isolation from the outside world.
After periods of crisis, often following admissions to psychiatric hospitals, Nash returned to mathematics. But a few months after the disease relapses. Therapies such as electroshock, straitjackets chemical injections of insulin have been scored in the physical, but now that Nash is a seventy still attending the Institute in Princeton, he studied mathematics and still seems cured of the disease.
In the early 90 ', the crisis seems to have no end. Nash can then return to his work with greater serenity, increasingly integrated into the system and the international academic learning to talk and exchange ideas with other colleagues. The symbol of this rebirth is marked in 1994 with the Nobel prize for economics.
The review of the film "A Beautiful Mind" PLOT OF THE FILM:
Year 1947. Although it is not the scion of a prestigious family, the young John Forbes Nash jr. was admitted to Princeton for postgraduate specialization in mathematics. After all the social niceties have no meaning for Nash, as well as the lessons does not occur. John is haunted by one thought: to find truly original idea. For him this is the only thing that could have a value. One evening, while in a bar with some friends, watch their behavior in a beautiful This blonde. Look gestures and patterns, and suddenly emerge in the mind feels that pursuing that idea for some time. His subsequent report on game theory, the mathematical discipline that analyzes the optimal behavior of individuals, or coalitions, in situations of strategic interaction, openly contradicts the theories of Adam Smith the father of modern economics. The thought of one hundred and fifty years after Smith passed suddenly appears. Following this discovery, Nash gets a post of professor at MIT, but it gets even more satisfaction when one William Parcher, a secret agent, contacted him for a risky job, we are in a cold war, and Nash is asked to decode the codes secrets of the enemy. Meanwhile, at MIT, Alicia, a student of physics, can also open the door to the street in the heart and feelings. The two married soon, but Nash does not say anything to his wife of its work secret. Too much tension, fatigue, danger in the end have the upper hand: obsessed with paranoia, visions, nightmares, Nash is declared with schizophrenia and hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital. From that moment his life takes place between prolonged periods of hospitalization and return home. Sustained by Alicia, Nash seems to be able to cast their hallucinations. In October 1978 he was back to Princeton. In March 1994, while sitting at the table of the library where almost 50 years earlier he had admired veteran of the university, it was announced that the Academy in Stockholm awarded him the Nobel Prize for the theory of the modern economy. In December 1994, Nash takes the stage, receives the award and thanked his wife in the room. "You are all my reasons," he says, turning to her.