The World Lost A Beautiful Mind – Tribute To Genius John Nash

Nobel Prize-winning mathemagician John Nash (86) was killed with his wife Alicia (82) in a car accident last Saturday when their taxi crashed in New Jersey, USA.

The mathematician – who once was under-estimated by Albert Einstein – is renowned for his work in game theory. He won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1994.

Nash was portrayed by the Academy Award-winning film "A Beautiful Mind“ which is about his groundbreaking work in game theory and his struggles with paranoid schizophrenia.

Russell Crowe, who played him in the film, tweeted:

Stunned... My heart goes out to John & Alicia & family. An amazing partnership. Beautiful minds, beautiful hearts.

A BEAUTIFUL AND STRUGGLING MIND

John Nash, a brilliant and highly likeable genius of its own, inspired generations of mathematicians, scientists, politicians, business people, entrepreneurs, economists, and many, many more. All of them strongly influenced by his splendid work in game theory.

After Nash had married Alicia Larde - an MIT physics major when the pair met in 1957 - he developed schizophrenia soon after. The couple divorced in 1963, but Alicia continued to care for John during his illness. He resumed researching and teaching again in the 1980s. The couple remarried in 2001 and became prominent mental health advocates.

In an autobiographical essay submitted to the Nobel committee, Nash says about his illness and his long fight against it the following: 

However I am still making the effort and it is conceivable that with the gap period of about 25 years of partially deluded thinking providing a sort of vacation my situation may be atypical. Thus I have hopes of being able to achieve something of value through my current studies or with any new ideas that come in the future.

Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech in the Movie "A Beautiful Mind"

THE NASH EQUILIBRIUM

At Princeton, John Nash studied game theory and developed the concept that would come to be known as the Nash equilibrium.

Informally, a set of strategies is a Nash equilibrium if no player can do better by unilaterally changing his or her strategy. To see what this means, imagine that each player is told the strategies of the others. Suppose then that each player asks himself or herself: "Knowing the strategies of the other players, and treating the strategies of the other players as set in stone, can I benefit by changing my strategy?"

If any player would answer "Yes", then that set of strategies is not a Nash equilibrium. But if every player prefers not to switch (or is indifferent between switching and not) then the set of strategies is a Nash equilibrium. Thus, each strategy in a Nash equilibrium is a best response to all other strategies in that equilibrium.

One of the best description of the world-renowned Nash Equilibrium is given in the movie when Nash (Russell Crowe) explains why both his buddies and Nash himself should ignore the beautiful Blonde who had just entered the bar if they wanted to increases their joint chances of finding some romance that evening:

TRIBUTE TO JOHN AND ALICIA NASH

The Nash Equlibrium has huge and broad applications. For example everything from auctions, conflicts, wars, negotiations, artificial intelligence, penalty kicks in soccer, buying a new car, etc.

For many years I´ve been an humble admirer of John Nash´s work and his breakthrough achievements. Thank you!

My thoughts and heart go out to the family of John and Alicia Nash who have touched many lives. You were and are truly amazing. In many ways. We will always remember you!

Best regards,

Andreas von der Heydt

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Andreas von der Heydt is the Head and Director of Kindle Content at Amazon in Germany. Before that he held various senior management positions at Amazon and L'Oréal. He's a leadership expert and management coach. He also founded Consumer Goods Club. Andreas worked and lived in Europe, Australia, the U.S. and Asia. Andreas enjoys blogging as a private person here on LinkedIn about various exciting topics. His latest book is about what makes a future leader. All statements made, opinions expressed, etc. in his articles only reflect his personal opinion.

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