John F. Nash- A Brilliant Madness

John Forbes Nash, Jr. the schizophrenic, Nobel Prize-winner, is an American mathematician who works in game theory, differential geometry, and equations.

He was born on June 13, 1928 (age 79). He shared the 1994 Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences (also called the Nobel Prize in Economics) with two other game theorists, Reinhard Selten and John Harsanyi. He became the subject of the popular Hollywood movie, A Beautiful Mind, about his mathematical genius and his struggles with schizophrenia. Popular actor Russell Crowe played the lead role in this film.

Nash began to show signs of schizophrenia in 1958 (at Age 30). He became paranoid and was admitted to the Hospital, where he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and mild depression with low self-esteem. A person experiencing schizophrenia may demonstrate symptoms such as disorganized thinking, auditory hallucinations, and delusions. In severe cases, the person may be largely mute, remain motionless in bizarre postures, or exhibit purposeless agitation.

Nash returned to Princeton University in 1960. (Nash is currently a Senior Research Mathematician at Princeton). He remained in and out of mental hospitals until 1970, being given insulin shock therapy and antipsychotic medications, usually as a result of being committed rather than by his choice. From 1970, by his choice, he never took antipsychotic medication again.

In campus legend, Nash became "The Phantom of Fine Hall" (Fine Hall is Princeton's mathematics center), a shadowy figure who would scribble arcane equations on blackboards in the middle of the night.

In 1978 John Forbes Nash was awarded the John Von Neumann Theory Prize for his invention of non-cooperative equilibria, now called Nash equilibria. He won the Leroy P Steele Prize in 1999.

In 1994 he received the Nobel Prize in Economics as a result of his game theory work as a Princeton graduate student.