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by: Sylvia Nasar
Amazon.com's Price: $49.95 Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Audio Cassette
EAN: 9780786122158
Format: Unabridged
ISBN: 0786122153
Label: Blackstone Audiobooks
Manufacturer: Blackstone Audiobooks
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 600
Publication Date: June 01, 2002
Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks
Release Date: June 01, 2002
Sales Rank: 3464812
Studio: Blackstone Audiobooks
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
In this powerful and dramatic biography, Sylvia Nasar vividly re-creates the life of a mathematical genius whose career was cut short by schizophrenia and who, after three decades of devastating mental illness, miraculously recovered and was honored with a Nobel Prize. A Beautiful Mind traces the meteoric rise of John Forbes Nash, Jr., a prodigy and legend by the age of thirty, who dazzled the mathematical world by solving a series of deep problems deemed “impossible” by other mathematicians. But at the height of his fame, Nash suffered a catastrophic mental breakdown and began a harrowing descent into insanity, resigning his post at MIT, slipping into a series of bizarre delusions, and eventually becoming a dreamy, ghostlike figure at Princeton, scrawling numerological messages on blackboards. He was all but forgotten by the outside world—until, remarkably, he emerged from his madness to win world acclaim. A feat of biographical writing, A Beautiful Mind is also a fascinating look at the extraordinary and fragile nature of genius.
Amazon.com Review:
Stories of famously eccentric Princetonians abound--such as that of chemist Hubert Alyea, the model for The Absent-Minded Professor, or Ralph Nader, said to have had his own key to the library as an undergraduate. Or the 'Phantom of Fine Hall,' a figure many students had seen shuffling around the corridors of the math and physics building wearing purple sneakers and writing numerology treatises on the blackboards. The Phantom was John Nash, one of the most brilliant mathematicians of his generation, who had spiraled into schizophrenia in the 1950s. His most important work had been in game theory, which by the 1980s was underpinning a large part of economics. When the Nobel Prize committee began debating a prize for game theory, Nash's name inevitably came up--only to be dismissed, since the prize clearly could not go to a madman. But in 1994 Nash, in remission from schizophrenia, shared the Nobel Prize in economics for work done some 45 years previously.
Economist and journalist Sylvia Nasar has written a biography of Nash that looks at all sides of his life. She gives an intelligent, understandable exposition of his mathematical ideas and a picture of schizophrenia that is evocative but decidedly unromantic. Her story of the machinations behind Nash's Nobel is fascinating and one of very few such accounts available in print (the CIA could learn a thing or two from the Nobel committees). This highly recommended book is indeed 'a story about the mystery of the human mind, in three acts: genius, madness, reawakening.' --Mary Ellen Curtin
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - the book behind the movie
A well written informatiive book. Deals with the closeness of madness and genuis, not just in John Nash. Facinatingly chronicles a period in time when all the rules were changing!
Rating: - Complex Man-A Bio That Runs True
A while back I was glancing through one of my wife's magazines and found this article on John Nash. I read with interest and inexplicably began staring at one of the photos. "Oh, my God!" I recognized him. D floor. Firestone Library at Princeton University. For a while I had studied there rather steadily and spent a fair amount of time on D floor - coke machines and chatter. John Nash used to show up there fairly regularly and saw me as well. There was some gossip from the other D floor patrons about ... Read More
Rating:  - Mathematician-bio or creepy gay p*rn, you decide
Here are typical descriptive passages from A Beautiful Mind. My comments are in square brackets.
Description of Nash: "He had the build... of an athlete, 'a very strong, very muscular body,' one fellow graduate student recalled. He was, moreover, 'handsome as a god,' according to another student... His hair flopped over his forehead; he was constantly brushing it away. He wore his fingernails very long, which drew attention to his rather limp and beautiful hands and long, delicate fingers." ... Read More
Rating: - Reads like a novel
(Spoiler alert) The book wasn't anything like the movie, but an excellent and engaging read. Nasar does a thorough job of including an adequate amount of detail about the influences in Nash's life without getting too bogged down in name dropping (the list of influences is interesting). The progression of his life, as told in the book, and the events that shaped his influence in the fields of mathematics and economics, all leading to his Nobel Prize award are put together well to keep the story moving. A fast ... Read More
Rating: - An Opinion of "A Beautiful Mind" from a fellow schizophrenic
I read this book about two weeks ago, and I couldn't put it down. Maybe my opinion is biased because I have schizophrenia myself, but I found this story to be particularly encouraging in terms of my own recovery. The genius John Nash refused the coercive treatments of psychiatry and recovered naturally as some people do. I think it's sad that John could never reach the height of his mathematical genius again, after his illness, but it's still a hopeful story because he made a complete recovery, in my opinion. ... Read More
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