Today we will present a short biography of John Forbes Nash, one of the most brilliant mathematicians of our century, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics for his game theory and negotiation processes.
However, if there is one aspect we remember is his prodigious (and wonderful) mind, able to deal with paranoid schizophrenia by handling irrational thoughts.
- Columbia University reporter and professor Sylvia Nasar wrote a book about Nash’s life.
- Which was then brought to the big screen in the film “A Bright Mind.
- “.
This book describes above all the most creative period of this mathematical genius who wandered the halls of Princeton University.
He was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was thirty, but it was also a time when his faculties and math skills were more awake than ever.
As Nash himself later explained, he gave the same truthfulness to the supernatural beings who created his mind and mathematical ideas. The two worlds overlap diffusely, but in turn provide incredible creative and theoretical harmony.
The contributions of that time were immense. For example, his nonlinear equations in partial derivatives have had a decisive impact on fields as diverse as science, mathematics, finance, systems biology, political science, psychology and, of course, economics.
Thus, your game theory, for example, gives us a very valuable tool to try to predict how different phenomena will evolve, besides, we cannot ignore that this theoretical approach has a noble purpose, since Nash’s idea was to obtain a formula. to create fairer economies and policies.
“Even when he was mentally disturbed, he was extremely interested in numbers. However, it was around the 1980s that I decided that scientific appreciation of numbers should be more relevant than my paranoid ideas. John Nash?
John Forbes Nash was born in June 1928 in Virginia. As you can guess, this math genius was a boy with great skills.
He learned to read early on and, like most gifted students, presented the classic problems of adapting to an ordinary school, and he did not pay attention in class, was very agitated, struggled with his social skills and took bad grades.
Now his intuition in mathematics and everything related to science was prodigious, in fact, he was not yet a teenager when he was already studying only Fermat’s classic theorem.
He joined the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh earlier than expected. Later, he wanted to specialize in chemistry and engineering, but failed. His field, of course, was mathematics.
In 1948 the doors open of what would be his true destiny: Princeton University, the mecca of mathematics, home to other prodigious minds such as Albert Einstein and Von Neumann, the latter was john Forbes Nash’s true reference. who introduced game theory to the mathematical sciences.
“I don’t think I had good scientific ideas if I had formally thought like everyone else. “John Forbes Nash?
His academic career has been metheoric. Nash had a gift, was there anything extraordinary about him, his way of innovating in mathematical formulas and theorems, his exquisite technique for achieving a quick and easy solution was incredible?
His teachers, classmates and students were surprised by this brilliant spirit. However, they were also aware of their eccentric behavior.
He completed his Doctorate at age 21, thanks to a 27-page thesis on non-cooperative games, awarded by the entire academic community, and then began working for the United States Air Force on strategic research.
In 1957, John Forbes Nash married an alumna, Alicia Lardé Lopez-Harrison. This young woman will be your best support throughout her life.
It was precisely a year after the marriage that everything started to erupt, Nash began to show paranoid behavior. He was convinced that the cryptocommunicists were chasing him and that everyone wearing a red tie spat on him and conspired against him Sent letters to embassies in Washington, alerting and denouncing complex political plots?
After being admitted to McLean Hospital, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. His life resulted in a full income trip, nearly a year’s stay in psychiatric hospitals, antipsychotic treatments and shock insulin therapies.
As he struggles in this clinical world, between relapses and delusions, his academic work has aroused greater admiration and respect on the part of the university community.
In the 1970s, John Forbes Nash made a decision: he would not allow his irrational thoughts and paranoid ideas to control his life, he decided to build a wall, contain this supernatural universe and improve his lifestyle.
Thanks to the support of his wife Alicia, he was able to take care of his food, live a quieter day and thus reduce those internal voices.
However, his behavior remained irregular and sometimes disconcerting, at the University they became accustomed to these changes and, as a result, Nash was able to continue his work, having more appropriate control over his illness, without resorting to medication.
In 1994, John Forbes Nash was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, his merit was adding the concept of equilibrium in game theory, which has given all of science and the discipline a more reliable way to predict the behavior of the people.
Applications of your work can be included in almost any field. However, the world of economics, and in particular microeconomics, has this theory as its best basis.
After the Nobel Prize, New York Times reporter Sylvia Nasar came back to the life of Nash and his wife Alicia, wanted to tell their story, wanted to show the world how she was dealing with her schizophrenia and how she developed her balance theory. After the novel was published, the Oscar-winning film “Uma Brilliant Mind” was shot.
Suddenly, everyone met John Forbes Nash, this professor who walked the halls of Princeton discreetly, eccentricly and always focused, now his mind was no longer as bright as it used to be. With a return to rationality and control of his illness, his mathematical intuition was no longer the same.
Unfortunately, Nash and Alicia died together on May 23, 2015, in Oslo, in a traffic accident, after receiving an award from King Harald V for their work at the age of 86.