A Beautiful Mind Mathematician John F. Nash Jr. Dies 176
Rick Zeman writes: John F. Nash Jr. revolutionized the mathematical field of game theory and was given a mind that was unique and deeply troubled. He became known to most people by the movie about his life, A Beautiful Mind. Dr. Nash died, along with his wife, May 24 in a two-car accident on the New Jersey Turnpike. The Washington Post reports: "In 1994, when Dr. Nash received the Nobel Prize in economics, the award marked not only an intellectual triumph but also a personal one. More than four decades earlier, as a Princeton University graduate student, he had produced a 27-page thesis on game theory — in essence, the applied mathematical study of decision-making in situations of conflict — that would become one of the most celebrated works in the field. Before the academic world could fully recognize his achievement, Dr. Nash descended into a condition eventually diagnosed as schizophrenia. For the better part of 20 years, his once supremely rational mind was beset by delusions and hallucinations. By the time Dr. Nash emerged from his disturbed state, his ideas had influenced economics, foreign affairs, politics, biology — virtually every sphere of life fueled by competition. But he been absent from professional life for so long that some scholars assumed he was dead."
I guess that if a Mathematician... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
Re:I guess that if a Mathematician... (Score:5, Informative)
There isn't a Nobel prize in Economics though, even if that is what the article says. It is the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences as Alfred Nobel did not set it up.
Yes, it's technically correct [nobelprize.org], though I get tired of hearing this brought up all the time, as if it's some sort of weird conspiracy theory to make it sound like there's a "Nobel Prize" when there isn't one.
Look -- the Nobel Prizes are awarded by the Nobel Foundation [wikipedia.org]. They use the same administrative mechanisms and process for choosing the economics prize, the same academic body (the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences) makes the selections as most other prizes, they give the same award money, and they give the award at the same ceremony.
The difference is that the other prizes were created by Nobel himself, while the economics prize [wikipedia.org] was later endowed by contributions to the Nobel Foundation, who agreed to administer the prize under the same criteria.
So yes, while Nobel himself didn't set it up, the fact is that the only body that matters NOW is who awards the prize, that that foundation (which actually OWNS and administers things called "Nobel Prizes") has decided to award a prize in economics too, which it basically treats in every way EXACTLY THE SAME as the other prizes.
This strikes me like someone claiming that the Harvard Medical School or the Harvard Business School aren't REALLY "Harvard" schools, because John Harvard didn't explicitly will money to create schools of medicine or business or whatever back in the 1630s... he just wanted to create a college, and it was mostly a kind of seminary in the early days. So, you may think you are a Harvard Medical School grad -- but it's not REALLY "Harvard."
There IS a bit of a difference here because the Nobel Foundation itself tries to keep a subtle distinction in the naming of the prizes, probably due to legal constraints about how the will was worded exactly. But acting like there's some big difference and it's not "really a Nobel Prize" is ridiculous -- it's just a historical and semantic distinction, not one that actually means anything in terms of how the prize is administered, selected, or awarded. And that's probably why the media usually makes little distinction, because in all ways that ACTUALLY MATTER, there isn't one.
(And by the way, usually this argument tends to come up from people who want to claim economics isn't a "real science" or something. I won't get into that argument, but well, neither is "peace" or "literature.")
Re:I guess that if a Mathematician... (Score:4, Insightful)
When Barack Hussein Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for doing ... oh yeah, absolutely nothing, the entire credibility of all Nobel prizes took a swift kick in the gonads. Including those based on science and mathematics.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I, for one, knew it was the prize award for "Not Being George W. Bush" and recognized the political meaning to the prize, a well-established practice that did nothing to the credibility of the awarding.
Unless you don't like giving GWB the finger.
Re: (Score:1)
"Not Being George W. Bush"
...was considered a great advance for world peace by almost the entire planet.
Re: (Score:2)
But you thought it was credible to give Kissinger one?
Re: (Score:2)
But you thought it was credible to give Kissinger one?
While this was justly ridiculed (by Tom Lehrer no less) I suspect that most of the people responsible are either dead or no longer involved. At what point do institutions reach redemption?
Re: (Score:2)
When Barack Hussein Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for doing ... oh yeah, absolutely nothing, the entire credibility of all Nobel prizes took a swift kick in the gonads. Including those based on science and mathematics.
It was to make up for having awarded it to Henry Kissinger in 1973.
Re:I guess that if a Mathematician... (Score:5, Funny)
It was to make up for having awarded it to Henry Kissinger in 1973.
To do that they would have had to award it to Starlight Glimmer.
Re: (Score:2)
It was to make up for having awarded it to Henry Kissinger in 1973.
To do that they would have had to award it to Starlight Glimmer.
Hey now, I'm pretty sure Henry Kissinger actually exists.
Although on further reflection, he might be a lizard...
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
When Barack Hussein Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for doing ... oh yeah, absolutely nothing, the entire credibility of all Nobel prizes took a swift kick in the gonads. Including those based on science and mathematics.
It wasn't for nothing. It was very likely because at the time he was single-handedly pushing for nuclear disarmament negotiations with Russia. I know this because a relative of mine was involved in the process.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
you get the prize for accomplishments (should anyway) not wishes and dreams
With Congress and the Senate in the hands of the republicans, what can he really do? Pretty much nothing except twiddle dials.
Re: (Score:3)
but besides all of that, your blame the republicans tactic has nothing at all to do with him winning the award. Plain and simple he got the award when he did absolutely NOTHING to deserve it
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
you get the prize for accomplishments (should anyway) not wishes and dreams
He accomplished that a bat-shit insane person couldn't accidentally become president. Good enough for me.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, of course, we all believe you. (Rolls eyes).
I'm not lying, though I'm not giving up my pseudo-anonymity. He was involved in the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament.
Re: (Score:1)
When... Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for doing ... nothing, the entire credibility of all Nobel prizes took a swift kick ...
I can't and won't get over that either. (BTW, I supported O's election considering the opposition.) Every time I hear "Nobel," I think tainted. And if O had any dignity, he would have declined accepting it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When Barack Hussein Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for doing ... oh yeah, absolutely nothing, the entire credibility of all Nobel prizes took a swift kick in the gonads. Including those based on science and mathematics.
The Nobel Peace Price lost credibility when it was awarded to Henry Kissinger, who had, I assure you, done plenty.
Re: (Score:2)
Those people are right, and you're right about peace and literature.
Nash's contribution was really in mathematics, though, so that's fine by me.
BTW, the best proof that economics isn't a science, is that it isn't even included there : http://xkcd.com/435/ [xkcd.com]
Re: (Score:2)
The burden on proof really is on people (usually economists among themselves) that pretend that economics is a science.
Re: (Score:2)
And by the way, usually this argument tends to come up from people who want to claim economics isn't a "real science" or something.
The burden on proof really is on people (usually economists among themselves) that pretend that economics is a science.
I just want to be clear that I was in no way implying that economics is (or is not) a "real science" (whatever that means). The point of the end of my post was that this is often an argument brought up about Nobel Prizes, but such a criterion doesn't seem to be relevant given that there are prizes given for things that are definitely not "sciences" AND which were instituted by Nobel himself.
Re: (Score:2)
There is the matter that Nobel, nor his family, even those alive today, had any intention of giving an award to economists. The award is given in the memory of Alfred Nobel, which is nice, but taken to the extreme and you get David Miscavage giving Tom Cruise the "Albert Einstein Humanitarian Anti-Psycho
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:I guess that if a Mathematician... (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, but the Fields medal is bit difficult because it has a low age limit. So you have write somthing great and get recognized for it before the age of 30
Re: (Score:1)
40 is the upper bound for the Fields Medal, and since it is only awarded every 4 years, the effective age limit is somewhere between 36 and 40 depending upon your birth year modulo 4.
Re: (Score:3)
Nash just got the Abel price! (Score:5, Informative)
Just 5 days ago, John F. Nash and Louis Nirenberg got the Abel price in a ceremony in Oslo:
http://www.abelprize.no/ [abelprize.no]
With a diploma handed over by the Norwegian King Harald and a NOK 6M prize this is the closest thing math has to a Nobel prize.
Unlike the Fields Medal there is no age limit, so just like the Nobel prizes it tends to be given out at a later date, for work that has proven itself to be really outstanding.
Terje
Re: (Score:3)
This is a terrible irony. His death is most untimely indeed. Here is a high-level description of Nash's work on PDEs by C. Villani [cedricvillani.org].
I personally have extreme admiration for Nash’s work on partial differential equations. He wrote just one paper on the subject, in 1958 (Continuity of solutions of parabolic and elliptic equations), but this one of the most astonishing works in the history of partial differential equations. His proof has been often described as complicated, but I find it extremely attractive, and I also like a lot the way the paper is written: with a lot of explanations about his intuition and the way he arrived at the result. The genesis of the paper is fascinating, as discussed in Nasar’s book. By the way, one of the ingredients in the proof is Boltzmann’s entropy functional.
Here is another description from the Abel Prize page [abelprize.no].
The paper is here. [mff.cuni.cz]
Re: (Score:2)
But isn't math a part of Economics and Physics?
Re: (Score:1)
Economics is a social science, it is just a branch of psychology.
Re: (Score:2)
... which is just a branch of biology.
Re: (Score:2)
Hey, I didn't see you all over there...
Re: (Score:2)
There is microeconomics, which is pretty sciency. Macroeconomics is more sociology.
A true loss (Score:5, Insightful)
And so preventable (Score:5, Interesting)
Why don't we wear seatbelts in taxi cabs? Is it even legal to not wear seat belts?
Re: (Score:2)
Why don't we wear seatbelts in taxi cabs? Is it even legal to not wear seat belts?
Its hard to convince Americans in general to wear seat belts.
Re: (Score:2)
I think it's an age thing too. When I was growing (admittedly this is about 25 years ago) up there was an old lady that used to walk into town. We often gave her a lift and she would pull the seat belt across her, and hold it but not plug it in. I don't know anyone in my age group (or my parents' age group) that don't wear seatbelts - but then they've been mandatory in any countries I've lived in.
Re: (Score:2)
It is legal to not wear a seat belt in the back seat in many jurisdictions, and the regulation where it is required is enforced in even fewer. The idea being, I suppose, that the seats ahead of you keep you from being ejected through the windshield.
However, if one was riding in the front seat, the wearing of seat belts is required by law just about everywhere now.
It was not clear to me their seating when they were ejected, but at least one would have been in the back, presumably. Certainly, I have trouble
Re: (Score:2)
The idea being, I suppose, that the seats ahead of you keep you from being ejected through the windshield.
Which is pretty flawed - the seats may well stop you flying through the windscreen, but it quite likely there's some poor bastard in that seat who's going to get clobbered. In the UK they used to have a road safety advert [youtube.com] that went along the lines of
Like most victims - July knew her killer - it was her son, who wasn't wearing his seatbelt...
Re: (Score:2)
Was her son's name Brutus?
Re: (Score:2)
It is legal to not wear a seat belt in the back seat in many jurisdictions, and the regulation where it is required is enforced in even fewer.
You're right, and I find that quite strange.
Maybe some legislators need an update on the laws of physics, and the facts that they apply to all the car and not just the front seats.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, we should give Nash a big fine to deter him from doing it again.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm just surprised cabs let people not use seatbelts, is all. It wouldn't take too many sting operations for them to change, though...
I find it fascinating what we freak out about, versus what we tolerate. The same set of points can be made about city buses. I get that seatbelts are harder for them to use. And that they are heavier vehicles, so the relative force imparted on collision is l
Re: (Score:1)
Stop treating everyone as children. Adults are moral entities with agency, and can damn well decide on their own whether to wear a seatbelt or not.
I find it fascinating what we freak out about, versus what we tolerate.
Exactly: we seem t have a collective fetish for forcing others to make the same choices that we would, instead of respecting one another as people just like us, each with the right to find his own distinct path to happiness.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not so easy : by not wearing a seatbelt, you make it easier for others (taxi driver and other drivers on the road) to accidentally kill you. It's a big burden that you could put on other "moral entities".
Re: (Score:2)
That is the key to embracing totalitarianism: everything each of us do will always have some negative effect on another, thus the government must control everything each of us do for the common good. There's always an excuse you can find for that government control - always.
Re: (Score:2)
What is the rationale behind "seatbelt laws are wrong"? I suppose I've grown up with seatbelt laws so I don't think about them, other than the fact that they're not there to protect just you, they're also there to protect the people you're sharing the car with.
Re: (Score:2)
We used to care about liberty more than safety. Freedom mattered once. The right to be stupid, to make bad choices, to do the wrong thing, was seen as fundamental - after all, we need no "right" to do what everyone else says we should, liberty only comes into play when others disapprove of your actions. This didn't used to need explaining. Now, we're basically fucked - we raised a generation that embraces total control of our lives by the government, that can't even see what the argument against it woul
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In the UK, most (if not all) coaches have seatbelts. The announcement on my local service into London is "this coach has seatbelts and it's a legal requirement to wear one" - and I do, because I've seen what happens when one of those coaches crashes on the motorway.
Re: (Score:2)
But what is the Nash equilibrium in the game of not wearing a seatbelt vs resources spent on increasing seatbelt use?
Re: (Score:2)
Both math, and that limitations are not what stops you.
But a Crown Victoria in the face usually does.
Re: (Score:2)
If he was in a self-driving taxi, the probability is higher he'd still be alive.
Or he could have just been killed a mile down the road by someone who plowed into their self-driving taxi.
that explains everything... (Score:2)
By the time Dr. Nash emerged from his disturbed state, his ideas had influenced economics, foreign affairs, politics, biology — virtually every sphere of life
I just like how it sounds... ignore me!
Re: (Score:2)
By the time Dr. Nash emerged from his disturbed state, his ideas had influenced economics, foreign affairs, politics, biology — virtually every sphere of life
I would think that his disturbed state actually influenced his theories. I believe that his paranoid schizophrenia started somewhat early on. I cannot imagine how such a profound mental disturbance would not influence one's intellect.
Thanks You Dr. Nash (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Thanks You Dr. Nash (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey, he wasn't just a mathematician, he was also a computer geek. I used to see him back in the early 80's in the middle of the night in the Princeton computer center, wandering around with a deck of punch cards for the IBM mainframe.
I was playing Frisbee in a field with some friends, and it started to drizzle. Professor Nash walked by, and laid down on a bench under a tree. He folded his hands together, closed his eyes, and looked really placid, but we could see that he was thinking about something.
You know that saying, "A penny for your thoughts?" I would have paid a fortune to know what he was thinking about!
Re: (Score:2)
Heh. I was at Princeton last year, and apparently everyone there had a Nash story about him just walking in to a random room with his sweater on, doing something weird, and then moving on.
Re: (Score:2)
How long was your career? The movie came out in 2001.
Also, may I ask what you do?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Please correct the headline... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
He's famous in pop culture because of the film, that's because most of us are uneducated knuckledraggers.
Re: Please correct the headline... (Score:1)
I am an educated knuckledragger, thank you very much!
Re: (Score:2)
Do taxis even have seatbelts? I don't recall ever having put one on in the back of one.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
What you're saying is that if you die, you want to take the person in the front seat down with you.
http://thecarseatlady.com/back... [thecarseatlady.com]
Re: (Score:2)
At least most of us are smart enough to wear a seatbelt and not get ejected from a vehicle.
Why this anonymous human being is modded down?
The two were thrown from their vehicle, police said. Media reports said the couple may not have been wearing seatbelts when they crashed. (source: BBC [bbc.com])
Re: (Score:3)
Furthermore, I've read that the driver did use a seatbelt -- and survived.
If that is true then the driver is better in physics than mister Nash was...
Re:Please correct the headline... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Somehow intellectual brilliance seems to have its way with mental stability, let's just hope some brilliant mind will discover a treatment some time in the future.
Re: (Score:2)
He is known for his work in game theory, however he is not a game theory mathematician since before fading into his mental illness he was working on quantum theory. His paper on game theory is his Ph. D. thesis. Just the tip of the iceberg this mathematician was and could have been if the illness didn't stopped him.
Indeed. If you look at his actual proof [wikipedia.org] of the existence Nash equilibrium it's a brilliant piece of mathematics where he freely jumps between seemingly unrelated fields of mathematics (probability theory in one instance, geometry in the next etc.), like a butterfly between flowers on a meadow. Obvious only in hindsight.
However, as schizophrenia [wikipedia.org] is a disease that is characterised by the brain making associations between things that can't even be associated (e.g. "clanging [wikipedia.org]" thinking as if words that rhyme act
Re: (Score:2)
He became famous to the public at large through the movie.
Re: (Score:2)
He became famous to the public at large through the movie.
I thought this site offered News for Nerds, not for people who watch Oscar-bait movies.
Googlespiracy? (Score:2)
Did the other driver get charged by police...if there is one...
Game Theory (Score:2)
decision-making in situations of conflict
Sounds like the New Jersey Turnpike alright.
Fear of Driving (Score:3, Insightful)
It amazes me how nutty people get over "terrorists" when the roads are like a civilized version of Mad Max. People constantly die every day. Tens of thousands of lives unnecessarily lost every year just to automobile accidents. I feel like I'm the only rational person when I experience a certain apprehension every time I get behind a wheel, knowing that while racing through space in a multi ton coffin, even a small mistake could send me careening to my death.
Re: (Score:2)
People get nutty because media get nutty. Media get nutty about terrorists attacks, because these are things to report about. Basically, they do exactly what the terrorists want them to do: spread the information about the event.
If a plane crashes, media report, because hundreds of people die at the same moment. No news channel will send live 4k helicopter footage from all 300 car accidents that would be needed to create a comparable number of deaths on the road.
Re: (Score:3)
Consider if the media did do this — detail the (on average) 90 people killed in the US on the roads in one day. And then did it again the next day. And the next. And the next.
Perhaps then the population would demand a proportionate response. Or at least would place the current risk from terrorism in context.
Once that's done, we could move on to cancer.
Re: (Score:3)
It amazes me how nutty people get over "terrorists" when the roads are like a civilized version of Mad Max. People constantly die every day. Tens of thousands of lives unnecessarily lost every year just to automobile accidents. I feel like I'm the only rational person when I experience a certain apprehension every time I get behind a wheel, knowing that while racing through space in a multi ton coffin, even a small mistake could send me careening to my death.
The difference is that while you are indeed taking a small risk every time you get on the road, you have the luke-warm comfort of knowing that just like, you the vast majority of other people on the road don't want to die themselves, or see you die. Doesn't mean they're all as careful as they should be, and some are indeed belligerent and dangerous on the road, though they are the minuscule exceptions. Most accidents are the result of inattentiveness in one form or another, or poor judgment.
People, on t
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but malicious intent is only a part of the threat equation. I'd rather have one completely incompetent malicious guy trying to kill me, specifically, than a thousand incompetent but well-meaning drivers around me.
Just because malice feels more dangerous doesn't make it so. It may well be more reprehensible, but decisions affecting foreign policy and national security shouldn't be made based on feelings.
Re: (Score:2)
American traffic is pretty tame compared to many other regions: Middle East and South Korea come immediately to mind. The laws of physics do not apply in their minds. Other regions, like India or the Philippines are just plain chaotic as hell, not necessarily rude, but primitive.
American traffic behavior may be poor compared to say, The Netherlands or Sweden, but it is MUCH more tame than a large majority of the world... and let's not bring Russian traffic into this discussion.
Conclusion drawn from this physics experiment (Score:2)
Wear seat belts!
Re: (Score:3)
He and his wife were unfortunately not wearing seat belts. I really don't understand intelligent people not wearing a safety belt. Particularly in a cab.
Re: (Score:3)
My younger brother used to never wear his seatbelt, arguing that he'd rather be thrown clear of an accident than be trapping in a rolling and or crushed vehicle. I had tried to tell him that the odds of that weren't good, even if he ended up out of the vehicle he'd likely get crushed. It all fell on deaf ears.
Then one day a high school buddy of his was in an accident while not wearing his seatbelt. He was thrown halfway out of the pickup truck when the truck rolled over and cut him in half. His friend died
Re:Taxicab vs Uber (Score:4, Interesting)
In a high speed accident anything can happen of course. The real benefit is in lower speed accidents. In the past at speeds under 50mph many people were dying or being crippled for life without the use of seat belts. Properly belted in those are almost entirely walk away accidents. At really high speeds I'm not sure it makes that much difference. I remember back in the early sixties I was 5 years old and my Dad was driving his 59 Ford (on skinny bias-ply tires) with the needle on the speedometer right between the 00 on the 100MPH mark. The car had no belts at all and I was standing on the front seat gleefully yelling "pass another one daddy" as my father sipped on a jug of moonshine he had sitting on the floorboards between his legs. He's 90 now and when I remind him of it (he loves to criticize MY driving) he almost cries. It's amazing any of us survived. But hell it was fun.
Re: (Score:2)
My Mother in Law has commented on breastfeeding an infant, while behind the wheel, driving cross country, without wearing seatbelts. That was back in the late 60's early 70's I guess. I wouldn't even consider removing my child from their safety seat while a vehicle isn't parked these days. Of course some of her children were sent home from the hospital in a cardboard box that she was just supposed to put on the floorboards, different times for sure.
Re: (Score:2)
...arguing that he'd rather be thrown clear of an accident...
Yeah, thrown clear through a gate of knives. People should really remember that in Hollywood, smashed windows are typically made of sugar.
Re: Taxicab vs Uber (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe so, maybe not. I guess once you're over 80 life may seem a little less precious. I'm almost 60 and it hurts every day to get out of bed. I don't know if I want to live to be that old. The real benefit from safety belts is at slower speeds though. Why get concussions and broken bones from 30MPH fender benders? Wear a seat belt and maybe your shoulder is a little sore from where the harness caught it.
Re: (Score:2)
Excellent point. It's just a good idea. Seat belts aren't perfect but they sure improve your chances of avoiding bad things.
Re: (Score:2)
He and his wife were unfortunately not wearing seat belts. I really don't understand intelligent people not wearing a safety belt. Particularly in a cab.
But this is John Nash at 86 years old. So you have to ask Is this true or did he fake his death and what would that mean? Agent 86, what does he know that the rest of us do not?
Re:Alicia (Score:4, Insightful)
A pretty remarkable woman by all accounts. She stood by him (even though they divorced) through the dark decades of his illness and remarried after.