A Beautiful Mind by Silvia Nasar

             For anyone who has seen the film A Beautiful Mind John Nash comes across as a man troubled by schizophrenia, yet able to achieve success in his life. While his illness does cause him significant problems, he is still able to achieve greatness via his game theory, to manage a long-lasting relationship where his wife loves him unconditionally, to achieve social acceptance where his colleagues accept his condition, and to receive the ultimate career achievement in winning the Nobel prize. The film even shows Nash succeeding over his schizophrenia and become able to control it and cure himself. This depiction presents Nash's story as one full of positives where his struggle with schizophrenia and his life is seen in a romantic light. To see the real truth of schizophrenia, it is better to read Sylvia Nasar's biography of Nash titled A Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash. In this researched account of Nash's life, Nasar describes the truth of Nash's life and his schizophrenia. An analysis of the book will show that Nash's life is far from a romantic story with a happy ending and that schizophrenia is a far more serious condition than the film suggests.

             The first significant detail relates to Nash's accomplishments as a mathematician. His major achievement was a thesis he completed while studying at Princeton. This thesis contributed to the development of game theory. Nash received the Nobel Prize for this work in 1994. The most important point is that Nasar shows that Nash developed this theory in 1950. At this time, he was 21 and was not yet experiencing any symptoms of schizophrenia. In the film, this is depicted differently with the film visualizing how Nash came up with the theory. The book shows that this visualization is not correct and that Nash's schizophrenia was not the reason he was able to develop the theory. Andy Seiler makes the same point in his article titled "'Beautiful' movie skips ugly truths.

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