The Essential John Nash

By John F. Nash

Book Overview

When John Nash won the Nobel prize in economics in 1994, many people were surprised to learn that he was alive and well. Since then, Sylvia Nasar's celebrated biography A Beautiful Mind , the basis of a new major motion picture, has revealed the man. The Essential John Nash reveals his work--in his own words. This book presents, for the first time, the full range of Nash's diverse contributions not only to game theory, for which he received the Nobel, but to pure mathematics--from Riemannian geometry and partial differential equations--in which he commands even greater acclaim among academics. Included are nine of Nash's most influential papers, most of them written over the decade beginning in 1949. From 1959 until his astonishing remission three decades later, the man behind the concepts "Nash equilibrium" and "Nash bargaining"--concepts that today pervade not only economics but nuclear strategy and contract talks in major league sports--had lived in the shadow of a condition diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia. In the introduction to this book, Nasar recounts how Nash had, by the age of thirty, gone from being a wunderkind at Princeton and a rising mathematical star at MIT to the depths of mental illness. In his preface, Harold Kuhn offers personal insights on his longtime friend and colleague; and in introductions to several of Nash's papers, he provides scholarly context. In an afterword, Nash describes his current work, and he discusses an error in one of his papers. A photo essay chronicles Nash's career from his student days in Princeton to the present. Also included are Nash's Nobel citation and autobiography. The Essential John Nash makes it plain why one of Nash's colleagues termed his style of intellectual inquiry as "like lightning striking." All those inspired by Nash's dazzling ideas will welcome this unprecedented opportunity to trace these ideas back to the exceptional mind they came from.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691095272
• ISBN13: 9780691095271
• Release Date: December 2001
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 1.21 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 0.9" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

The Nash equilibrium

This is a faithful publication of the original John Nash Econometrica articles on game theory, as well as contributions by Harold Kuhn, Sylvia Nasar, and others that review Nash's work and his struggle with schizophrenia. It has a new retrospective introduction by John Nash well worth reading for his insights.

excellent

Personally, I found this book to be very interestring. The proofs and ideas are presented in clear and non-rigomorphic fashion. One is able to read the works of Nash in the way he himself presented them, and hopefully appropriate some mental strategies used by this genius. There is much that goes on behind the scene of creation of proofs. I think mathematicians of today would greatly benefit from availability of larger...

A Most Welcome Mathematical Banquet

I can't begin to express how deeply satisfying it was to peruse these papers by John Nash. You almost felt you were right there at his side, as he penned them.There is even something in the book for non-mathematical types: Sylvia Nasar's Introduction and the autobiographical essay (Chapter Two). But for me the greatest interest resided in the remaining chapters: 4-11.Of these, I particularly enjoyed reading the original presentation...

An excellent compilation

Having written about the life of the mathematician John Nash in the excellent biography "A Beautiful Mind", Sylvia Nasar teams up with the mathematician Harold W. Kuhn to produce a book that introduces the mathematical contributions of Nash, something that was done only from a "popular" point of view in Nasar's biography. For those who have the background, this book is a fine overview of just what won Nash acclaim in the mathematical...

Fascinating Reading

Even without the Nobel Prize for Economics, the outstanding movie by Ron Howard ("A Beautiful Mind"), or the exceptional biography by Sylvia Nasar (also "A Beautiful Mind"), Professor John Nash would a legend. While cursed with severe mental illness, Dr. Nash was and is an extraordinary man. His contributions to game theory were so ahead of their time it took over 30 years for economists and business leaders to apply them...