John Forbes Nash Jr. - Nobel Prize Winning Mathematician, Schizophrenia
It is often said that there is a fine line between genius and mentally ill, but John Nash proved throughout his life that sometimes you're both.
Born on 13th June, 1928 John Forbes Nash Junior is a mathematician who has greatly contributed to partial differential equations, game theory and differential geometry which have been used to give insight on issues governing events of systems of our day to day lives as well as chances.
His work is used in computing, economics, artificial intelligence, military theory, politics, accounting and evolutionary biology. He has served as a mathematics tutor in several institutions on and off due to his schizophrenia condition.
John Forbes Nash, Jr has greatly contributed to mathematics and is known for his publications such as The Bargaining Problem, Non-cooperative games, Real Algebraic Manifolds among many other publications and books.
John Nash's Success
Russell Crowe's portrayal of John Nash in 'A Beautiful Mind' (2001)
The most notable among John Forbes Nash’s successes came in 1994 when together with John Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten they won the Nobel Memorial Prize on Economic Sciences; the two he shared this award with were however not mathematicians but game theorists. In 1978 he was awarded the John von Neumann Theory Prize in regard for the discovery of the Nash Equilibrium then referred to as non-cooperative equlibria.
He is said to have published twenty three scientific studies between 1945 to 1996. From Carnegie Mellon University he received an honorary doctorate degree in economics in 1999. The University of Naples Federicho II also awarded him a degree in 2003 in regard to his contribution to economics. In 2007 the University of Antwerp awarded him an honorary doctorate.
John Forbes Nash Jr is also known to have given key note speeches in several institutions across the country apart from getting elected to the American Mathematical Society as a fellow in 2011.
Youth and Education
John Forbes Nash, Jr who was named after his father an electrical engineer had one sister Martha who was two years younger than him. His mother Margaret Virginia Martin was a school teacher before she got married.
Nash attended both kindergarten and public school in his native home of Bluefield, West Virginia with both his grandparents and parents providing him with encyclopedias and books that he learned from. His parents had to pursue several opportunities to educate him and encouraged him to take course in advance mathematics when on hi final high school year at a local community college.
After high school Nash got a full scholarship to attend the then Carnegie Institute of Technology currently known as Carnegie Mellon University. At the beginning Nash majored in chemical engineering, at some point he changed to chemistry and by the time he was graduating he had a major in mathematics. After his graduation with an Master of Science and Bachelor of Science in 1948 Nash a scholarship to Princeton University for graduate studies in mathematics.
Nash was later accepted to Harvard after a one line recommendation “This man is a genius” but upon being offered a fellowship at Princeton’s mathematics department he opted to go there as he wanted to be close to his family and earned his Ph.D. in 1950.
John Nash and Schizophrenia
![Recent interview with John Nash (2012)[click to see interview]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/531b9f14e4b0baf9a0e72bf2/1429751061562-4WCBXGKB33HU85934HE9/john-nash-speaking-of-his-condition)
Recent interview with John Nash (2012)
[click to see interview]
He began showing signs of schizophrenia in early 1959 and was at one point described by his wife to be erratic. During his episodes he believed that men donning red ties belonged to a communist conspiracy not in favor of him and sent several letters to the embassies affirming the said men were forming a government. His mental condition got known to his colleagues in 1959 while giving a lecture at the Colombia University when he went out of topic.
He then got admitted to McLean hospital between May and April of 1959 and started his medication. In 1961 he was back in hospital for his condition and was put under antipsychotic medication as well as insulin shock therapy. Nash was once heard saying “I would not have had scientific ideas if I heard thought normally” in reference to his schizophrenic condition that he believes was caused by his unhappiness and the desire to be important and get recognition.
According to Nash he only started hearing voices in 1964 and developed a process of ignoring them and that at times he was taken to hospital without his consent. However after being in and out of hospital over a long period Nash says he decided to conform behaving normally rather experience “enforced rationality” and started rejecting his “politically oriented” and “delusionally influenced” thinking as he saw it as a waste of effort.
One memorable quote by Nash was “Though I had success in my research both when I was mad and when I was not, eventually I felt that my work would be better respected if I thought and acted like a ‘normal’ person.” At AB Consultation and Counselling we believe the stigma of mental illness often makes people hide their mental illness, leaving it untreated. We actively fight against this, hoping to promote a greater acceptance of mental illness by society. We encourage anyone suffering from a mental illness or know someone who is, to seek treatment from caring professionals. At AB Consultation and Counselling we walk with you, on your road to recovery.