Sylvia Nasar - A Beautiful Mind : A Biography of John Forbes Nash, Jr.

W INNER , N ATIONAL B OOK C RITICS C IRCLE A WARD FOR B IOGRAPHY F INALIST , P ULITZER P RIZE IN B IOGRAPHY

Praise for A Beautiful Mind

Two paragraphs and I was hooked!

Oliver Sacks

A brilliant book.

David Herbert Donald

Reads like a fine novel.

David Goodstein, The New York Times

Powerfully affecting a three-handkerchief read.

Charles C. Mann, The Wall Street Journal

A triumph of intellectual biography.

Robert Boynton, Newsday

Might be compared to a Rembrandt portrait, filled with somber shadows and radiant light effects simply a beautiful book.

Marcia Bartusiak, The Boston Globe

A remarkable look into the arcane world of mathematics and the tragedy of madness.

Simon Singh, The New York Times Book Review

A narrative of compelling power.

John Allen Paulos, Los Angeles Times

A wonderfully absorbing puzzle.

Claire Douglas, Washington Post Book World

A poetical love and coming-of-age story.

Ted Anton, Chicago Tribune

The stuff of classic tragedy.

Robert A. Burton, San Jose Mercun News

A powerful story brilliantly told.

Will St. John, Detroit Free Press

A worthy subject and a fascinating book.

Craig Ryan, Portland Oregonian

A page-turner.

Claiborne Smith, Austin Chronicle

An arresting portrait.

June Kinoshita, St. Petersburg Times

The parabolic arc of an American genius superbly and thrillingly limned.

Will Blythe, Mirabella

A staggering feat of writing and reporting.

Michael J. Mandel, BusinessWeek

Profoundly sad yet redemptive.

Worth Magazine

Instead of facile theories, the reader enjoys wonder and astonishment.

Richard Dooling, Salon

Extraordinarily moving.

Jeremy Bernstein, Commentary

Absolutely fascinating.

Jim Holt, Slate

An engrossing, ultimately uplifting book.

Gregg Sapp, Kirkus Reviews

Will touch any reader who understands what it means to hope or to fear.

Booklist

Unique.

The Economist

A compelling book about a phenomenal figure.

Rov Porter, The Times

Unblinking yet empathic.

Daniel Kevles, Times Literan Supplement

A romantic human story.

Steven McCaffery, Irish News

Genuinely compulsive.

Jon Oberlander, Sunday Herald

An astonishing achievement.

Brian Rotman, London Review of Books

A masterpiece of oral history.

Karl Sigmund, Nature

Be prepared for the birth of a new culture hero.

Peter Wilhelm, Business Dav

I defy anyone to read Sylvia Nasars prologue without being moved.

Christopher Beauman, Broadway Ham & High

A magnificent biography.

Roy Weintraub, Journal of the History of Economic Thought

High drama.

Wade Roush, MIT Technology Review

Deeply moving.

Paul Trachtman, Smithsonian Magazine

Presented with grace and skill.

Brian Hayes, The Sciences

A must-read with something for everyone.

Keith Devlin, New Scientist

Fascinating, complicated, and studious.

Mark H. Fleisher, JAMA

A deeply moving love story, an account of the centrality of human relationships.

Richard Wyatt and Kay Jamison, The New England Journal of Medicine

A gripping narrative.

Kenneth Arrow, Nobel Laureate, The Times Higher Education Supplement

Copyright 1998 by Sylvia Nasar

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Cover Art 2001 by Universal Studios Publishing Rights, a Division of Universal Studios Licensing, Inc.

A Beautiful Mind is a trademark and copyright of Universal Studios.

All rights reserved.

First Simon & Schuster trade paperback edition July 2011

SIMON & SCHUSTER PAPERBACKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Nasar, Sylvia.

A beautiful mind : a biography of John Forbes Nash, Jr.,
winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, 1994/

Sylvia Nasar

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Nash, John F., 1928 . 2. Mathematicians

United States Biography I. Title

OA29.N25N37 1998

510.92

[B] DC21 98-2795

ISBN-13: 978-0-684-81906-8
ISBN-10: 0-684-81906-8
ISBN-13: 978-1-4516-2842-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-4391-2649-3 (ebook)

The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to reprint material from the following works:

The RAND Hymn, words and music by Malvina Reynolds, copyright 1961 by Schroeder Music Co. (ASCAP). Used by permission. All rights reserved. John F. Nash Jr. (Autobiographical Essay) and The Work of John Nash in Game Theory (Nobel Seminar), in Les Prix Nobel 1994 (Stockholm: Norstedts Tryckeri, 1995). Copyright The Nobel Foundation, 1994. Excerpts from Waking in the Blue from Life Studies by Robert Lowell. Copyright 1959 by Robert Lowell. Copyright renewed 1987 by Harriet Lowell, Sheridan Lowell, and Caroline Lowell. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. Excerpts from the letters of Robert Lowell reprinted with the permission of the Estate of Robert Lowell.

F OR A LICIA E STHER L ARDE N ASH

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH,
Intimations of Immortality

I N J UNE 2006, I went to St. Petersburg to track down the forty-year-old mathematician who had solved the Poincar Conjecture. Reputedly a hermit with wild hair and long nails who lived in the woods on mushrooms, he was up for a Fields Medal and a $1 million cash prize but had gone into hiding, not just from the media but from the math community. Meanwhile, some folks in Beijing were claiming that theyd beaten him to the punch. It was a great story if only we could find him.

After four frustrating days in Russia, my colleague and I hadnt found a soul who had seen or talked to the guy or his family in years. Then, when we had pretty much thrown in the towel, we stumbled on his mothers apartment more or less by accident and, voil, there was the hermit, dressed in a sports jacket and Italian loafers, evidently having lunch and watching soccer on TV.

He gestured for us to sit down and explain what we wanted.