A Beautiful Mind

“His best friends were books, and he was always happiest on his own.” 

From a young age, Nash has little interest in human connections and relationships. For much of his childhood, he eschews the company of other children, preferring instead to read and conduct experiments in his room. 

“Nash had never in his life encountered anything like this exotic little mathematical hothouse. It would soon provide him with the emotional and intellectual context he so much needed to express himself.” 

Although intelligent, Nash was not a remarkable student at school. In part, this was due to the fact that he hated to follow the long, drawn-out methods that the teachers recommended. It is not until he reaches Princeton that he is given the freedom and inspiration to explore his own working methods and make his own discoveries.  

“By broadening the theory to include games that involved a mix of cooperation and competition, Nash succeeded in opening the door to applications of game theory to economics, political science, sociology, and, ultimately, evolutionary biology.” 

Prior to Nash’s work on the Nash Equilibrium, game theory was focused on overly simplistic games of “total conflict” that had few applications in the real world. Nash’s contributions expanded game theory so that it could actually be used to predict real-life behavior. It is this contribution that eventually wins him a Nobel Prize.