A Beautiful Mind Read Online Free PDF Page A
Author: Sylvia Nasar
hospitable during my visit to Stockholm and helped me decipher the seemingly inscrutable process by which the
ne plus ultra
of honors is bestowed. Sociologist Harriet Zuckerman’s landmark study of Nobel Laureates served as an excellent road map.
Lloyd Shapley’s loving and lovely phrase “a beautiful mind” became, at Kathy Robbins’s suggestion, the title of the book.
I am infinitely grateful to the hundreds of individuals — mathematicians, economists, psychiatrists, and others who knew John Nash — who supplied the memories from which I’ve woven together his remarkable story. Every fragment, however tiny, added to the vividness of the whole, and each was gratefully received and treasured. In addition to those already cited, I am particularly indebted to Paul Samuelson, Arthur Mattuck, Paul Cohen, Odette Larde, Dorothy Thomas, Peter Lax, Cathleen Morawetz, Donald Newman, Al Vasquez, Richard Best, John Moore, Armand and Gaby Borel, Zipporah Levinson, Jerome Neuwirth, Felix and Eva Browder, Leopold Flatto, John Danskin, Emma Duchane, and Joyce Davis.
Archivists and librarians at Carnegie Mellon University, Princeton University, MIT, Harvard University, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Rockefeller Archive Center, McLean Hospital, the Swiss National Archives, and the National Archive provided important material and expert guidance. Special thanks to Arlen Hastings, Momota Ganguli, and Elise Hansen at the Institute for Advanced Study for making my year at the institute so productive, and to Richard Wolfe for sharing his knowledge of the Cambridge intellectual community.
Ellen Tremper, Geoffrey O’Brien, Harold Kuhn, Avinash Dixit, Lars Hormander, Jürgen Moser, Michael Artin, Donald Spencer, Richard Wyatt, and Rob Norton read and commented on various drafts. Their painstaking efforts eliminated mistakes, improved expositions, and added important new insights. All errors that remain are, of course, mine.
My husband, Darryl McLeod, and children, Clara, Lily, and Jack, not only lived with this book and its harried author for three years, but pitched in — on the computer, in the library, around the house — when deadlines were looming and the sky seemed about to fall. For their love and patience I am most indebted.
1. Virginia Nash with her children, Johnny and Martha, Bluefield, West Virginia, April 1935.
2. Martha and Johnny on a family holiday in Texas, circa 1939.
3. John Nash, Sr., napping in the company car, Bluefield, 1940s.
4, 5. John Nash standing tall —
above left,
at age six in Bluefield, and,
above right,
at his graduation at age twenty-one in Princeton, May 1950.
6.
Below left,
John Nash and his sister, Martha, Bluefield, fall 1948.
7.
Below right,
Martha, John Sr., John Jr., and Virginia Nash, Roanoke, summer 1954.
8.
Above left,
John Nash, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the early 1950s.
9.
Above,
the common-room crowd at MIT, Cambridge:
left to right,
John Nash, Walter Weissblum, Israel Young, Donald Newman, Jacob Bricker.
10. 11.
Left,
Eleanor Stier in Boston in 1956, and,
below left,
in 1955 with her and John Nash’s son, John David Stier.
12.
Below,
John Nash and John David.
13. Alicia Lopez-Harrison de Larde and Carlos Larde with their children, Rolando and Alicia, San Salvador, circa 1937.
14. Alicia Larde, John Nash’s future wife, San Salvador, circa 1940.
15. John and Alicia Nash after their wedding, Washington, D.C., February 1957.
16. Berkeley, California, summer 1957:
left to right,
an unidentified person, John (standing) and Alicia Nash, and Felix and Eva Browder.
17.
Above left,
Alicia and John Nash (drinking out of a baby’s bottle) at a New Year’s Eve costume party, Needham, Massachusetts, 1958.
18.
Above right,
John and Alicia Nash in a Chinese restaurant, Paris, winter 1960.
19.
Below left,
Alicia Nash holding their son, John Charles Martin Nash, Washington, D.C.,
ne plus ultra
of honors is bestowed. Sociologist Harriet Zuckerman’s landmark study of Nobel Laureates served as an excellent road map.
Lloyd Shapley’s loving and lovely phrase “a beautiful mind” became, at Kathy Robbins’s suggestion, the title of the book.
I am infinitely grateful to the hundreds of individuals — mathematicians, economists, psychiatrists, and others who knew John Nash — who supplied the memories from which I’ve woven together his remarkable story. Every fragment, however tiny, added to the vividness of the whole, and each was gratefully received and treasured. In addition to those already cited, I am particularly indebted to Paul Samuelson, Arthur Mattuck, Paul Cohen, Odette Larde, Dorothy Thomas, Peter Lax, Cathleen Morawetz, Donald Newman, Al Vasquez, Richard Best, John Moore, Armand and Gaby Borel, Zipporah Levinson, Jerome Neuwirth, Felix and Eva Browder, Leopold Flatto, John Danskin, Emma Duchane, and Joyce Davis.
Archivists and librarians at Carnegie Mellon University, Princeton University, MIT, Harvard University, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Rockefeller Archive Center, McLean Hospital, the Swiss National Archives, and the National Archive provided important material and expert guidance. Special thanks to Arlen Hastings, Momota Ganguli, and Elise Hansen at the Institute for Advanced Study for making my year at the institute so productive, and to Richard Wolfe for sharing his knowledge of the Cambridge intellectual community.
Ellen Tremper, Geoffrey O’Brien, Harold Kuhn, Avinash Dixit, Lars Hormander, Jürgen Moser, Michael Artin, Donald Spencer, Richard Wyatt, and Rob Norton read and commented on various drafts. Their painstaking efforts eliminated mistakes, improved expositions, and added important new insights. All errors that remain are, of course, mine.
My husband, Darryl McLeod, and children, Clara, Lily, and Jack, not only lived with this book and its harried author for three years, but pitched in — on the computer, in the library, around the house — when deadlines were looming and the sky seemed about to fall. For their love and patience I am most indebted.
1. Virginia Nash with her children, Johnny and Martha, Bluefield, West Virginia, April 1935.
2. Martha and Johnny on a family holiday in Texas, circa 1939.
3. John Nash, Sr., napping in the company car, Bluefield, 1940s.
4, 5. John Nash standing tall —
above left,
at age six in Bluefield, and,
above right,
at his graduation at age twenty-one in Princeton, May 1950.
6.
Below left,
John Nash and his sister, Martha, Bluefield, fall 1948.
7.
Below right,
Martha, John Sr., John Jr., and Virginia Nash, Roanoke, summer 1954.
8.
Above left,
John Nash, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the early 1950s.
9.
Above,
the common-room crowd at MIT, Cambridge:
left to right,
John Nash, Walter Weissblum, Israel Young, Donald Newman, Jacob Bricker.
10. 11.
Left,
Eleanor Stier in Boston in 1956, and,
below left,
in 1955 with her and John Nash’s son, John David Stier.
12.
Below,
John Nash and John David.
13. Alicia Lopez-Harrison de Larde and Carlos Larde with their children, Rolando and Alicia, San Salvador, circa 1937.
14. Alicia Larde, John Nash’s future wife, San Salvador, circa 1940.
15. John and Alicia Nash after their wedding, Washington, D.C., February 1957.
16. Berkeley, California, summer 1957:
left to right,
an unidentified person, John (standing) and Alicia Nash, and Felix and Eva Browder.
17.
Above left,
Alicia and John Nash (drinking out of a baby’s bottle) at a New Year’s Eve costume party, Needham, Massachusetts, 1958.
18.
Above right,
John and Alicia Nash in a Chinese restaurant, Paris, winter 1960.
19.
Below left,
Alicia Nash holding their son, John Charles Martin Nash, Washington, D.C.,
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