The Life And Death Of Mathematician John Nash
- Duration: 20:36
- Updated: 24 May 2015
John Forbes Nash, Jr. (June 13, 1928 — May 23, 2015) was an American mathematician whose works in game theory, differential geometry, and partial differential equations have provided insight into the factors that govern chance and events inside complex systems in daily life.
His theories are used in economics, computing, evolutionary biology, artificial intelligence, accounting, politics and military theory. Serving as a Senior Research Mathematician at Princeton University during the latter part of his life, he shared the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with game theorists Reinhard Selten and John Harsanyi. In 2015, he was awarded the Abel Prize (along with Louis Nirenberg) for his work on nonlinear partial differential equations.
Nash is the subject of Sylvia Nasar's biography A Beautiful Mind, and the film based on it, which focuses on Nash's mathematical genius and his schizophrenia.
Nash was born on June 13, 1928, in Bluefield, West Virginia, United States. His father, after whom he is named, was an electrical engineer for the Appalachian Electric Power Company. His mother, born Margaret Virginia Martin and known as Virginia, had been a schoolteacher before she married. He had a younger sister, Martha, born November 16, 1930.
Education
Nash attended kindergarten and public school. His parents and grandparents provided books and encyclopedias that he learned from. Nash's grandmother played piano at home, and Nash had positive memories of listening to her when he visited. Nash's parents pursued opportunities to supplement their son's education, and arranged for him to take advanced mathematics courses at a local community college during his final year of high school. Nash attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT; now Carnegie Mellon University) with a full scholarship, the George Westinghouse Scholarship, and initially majored in chemical engineering. He switched to chemistry, and eventually to mathematics. After graduating in 1948 with a B.S. degree and an M.S. degree, both in mathematics, he accepted a scholarship to Princeton University, where he pursued graduate studies in mathematics.
Nash's adviser and former CIT professor Richard Duffin wrote a letter of recommendation for graduate school consisting of a single sentence: "This man is a genius." Nash was accepted by Harvard University, but the chairman of the mathematics department of Princeton, Solomon Lefschetz, offered him the John S. Kennedy fellowship, which was enough to convince Nash that Princeton valued him more. Nash also considered Princeton more favorably because of its location closer to his family in Bluefield. He went to Princeton, where he worked on his equilibrium theory, later known as the Nash equilibrium.
Major contributions
Game theory
Nash earned a Ph.D. degree in 1950 with a 28-page dissertation on non-cooperative games. The thesis, which was written under the supervision of doctoral advisor Albert W. Tucker, contained the definition and properties of the Nash equilibrium. A crucial concept in non-cooperative games, it won Nash the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1994.
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John Forbes Nash, Jr. (June 13, 1928 — May 23, 2015) was an American mathematician whose works in game theory, differential geometry, and partial differential equations have provided insight into the factors that govern chance and events inside complex systems in daily life.
His theories are used in economics, computing, evolutionary biology, artificial intelligence, accounting, politics and military theory. Serving as a Senior Research Mathematician at Princeton University during the latter part of his life, he shared the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with game theorists Reinhard Selten and John Harsanyi. In 2015, he was awarded the Abel Prize (along with Louis Nirenberg) for his work on nonlinear partial differential equations.
Nash is the subject of Sylvia Nasar's biography A Beautiful Mind, and the film based on it, which focuses on Nash's mathematical genius and his schizophrenia.
Nash was born on June 13, 1928, in Bluefield, West Virginia, United States. His father, after whom he is named, was an electrical engineer for the Appalachian Electric Power Company. His mother, born Margaret Virginia Martin and known as Virginia, had been a schoolteacher before she married. He had a younger sister, Martha, born November 16, 1930.
Education
Nash attended kindergarten and public school. His parents and grandparents provided books and encyclopedias that he learned from. Nash's grandmother played piano at home, and Nash had positive memories of listening to her when he visited. Nash's parents pursued opportunities to supplement their son's education, and arranged for him to take advanced mathematics courses at a local community college during his final year of high school. Nash attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT; now Carnegie Mellon University) with a full scholarship, the George Westinghouse Scholarship, and initially majored in chemical engineering. He switched to chemistry, and eventually to mathematics. After graduating in 1948 with a B.S. degree and an M.S. degree, both in mathematics, he accepted a scholarship to Princeton University, where he pursued graduate studies in mathematics.
Nash's adviser and former CIT professor Richard Duffin wrote a letter of recommendation for graduate school consisting of a single sentence: "This man is a genius." Nash was accepted by Harvard University, but the chairman of the mathematics department of Princeton, Solomon Lefschetz, offered him the John S. Kennedy fellowship, which was enough to convince Nash that Princeton valued him more. Nash also considered Princeton more favorably because of its location closer to his family in Bluefield. He went to Princeton, where he worked on his equilibrium theory, later known as the Nash equilibrium.
Major contributions
Game theory
Nash earned a Ph.D. degree in 1950 with a 28-page dissertation on non-cooperative games. The thesis, which was written under the supervision of doctoral advisor Albert W. Tucker, contained the definition and properties of the Nash equilibrium. A crucial concept in non-cooperative games, it won Nash the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1994.
- published: 24 May 2015
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