A Beautiful Mind is a biography of the Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Forbes Nash, Jr.
The book covers Nash’s life, including his formative years studying under the Carnegie Scholarship at Princeton. Whilst at university, Nash develops the game theory now referred to as the Nash equilibrium. It is this theory that allows him to go onto study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Nash is then accepted for a job at the RAND Corporation (research and development) think tank corporation. It is here that he works on strategies for U.S Department of Defense, where he studies enemy telecommunications. However, Nash is also mentally ill and suffers from schizophrenia, which puts him paranoid that there are foreign enemies integrating themselves into his life.
The book describes his struggle with dealing with schizophrenia and the numerous relapses he suffers. Moreover, the book explores Nash’s complex psyche and his desire to succeed in the field of mathematics, which eventually lead him to win the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994 for his work in game theory.
