''A Beautiful Mind'' (1998) is a

biography A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or ...

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

-winning

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

and

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

John Forbes Nash Jr. John Forbes Nash Jr. (June 13, 1928 – May 23, 2015) was an American mathematician who made fundamental contributions to game theory, real algebraic geometry, differential geometry, and partial differential equations. Nash and fellow game ...

Sylvia Nasar Sylvia Nasar (born 17 August 1947) is an Uzbek German-born American journalist. She is best known for her biography of John Forbes Nash Jr., '' A Beautiful Mind'', for which she won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. Nasar cur ...

, professor of journalism at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. An unauthorized work, it won the

National Book Critics Circle Award The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

in biography. The book was later adapted into the film by the same name in 2001 directed by

Ron Howard Ronald William Howard (born March 1, 1954) is an American director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. He first came to prominence as a child actor, guest-starring in several television series, including an episode of ''The Twilight Zone''. He ...

and starring

Russell Crowe Russell Ira Crowe (born 7 April 1964) is an actor. He was born in New Zealand, spent ten years of his childhood in Australia, and moved there permanently at age twenty one. He came to international attention for his role as Roman General Maxi ...

as Nash.

Scope

Starting with his childhood, the book covers Nash's years at

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...

and

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

, his work for the

RAND Corporation The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed ...

, his

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

and his struggle with

schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social withdra ...

. Although Nasar notes that Nash did not consider himself a

homosexual Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...

, she describes his arrest for

indecent exposure Indecent exposure is the deliberate public exposure by a person of a portion of their body in a manner contrary to local standards of appropriate behavior. Laws and social attitudes regarding indecent exposure vary significantly in different ...

and firing from RAND amid the suspicion that he was, then considered grounds for revoking one's

security clearance A security clearance is a status granted to individuals allowing them access to classified information (state or organizational secrets) or to restricted areas, after completion of a thorough background check. The term "security clearance" is ...

. The book ends with Nash being awarded the

Nobel Prize in Economics The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...

in 1994. The book is a detailed description of many aspects of Nash's life, including the nature of his mathematical genius, and a close examination of his personality and motivations.

Reception

The book won the 1998

for biography, and was shortlisted for the

Rhône-Poulenc Prize The Royal Society Science Books Prize is an annual £25,000 prize awarded by the Royal Society to celebrate outstanding popular science books from around the world. It is open to authors of science books written for a non-specialist audience, and ...

in 1999. The book also appeared on the ''

New York Times Bestseller List ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. John Bear, ''The #1 New York Times Best Seller: intriguing facts about the 484 books that have been #1 New York Times ...

'' for biography.

Criticism

John Milnor John Willard Milnor (born February 20, 1931) is an American mathematician known for his work in differential topology, algebraic K-theory and low-dimensional holomorphic dynamical systems. Milnor is a distinguished professor at Stony Brook Uni ...

notes the ethical issues posed by the book, an unauthorized biography and prepared without the cooperation of the subject.John Milnor, Review -John Nash and ''A Beautiful Mind''
American Mathematical Society, October 1998

Adaptation

The book inspired the film '' A Beautiful Mind'', directed by

and starring

and

Jennifer Connelly Jennifer Lynn Connelly (born December 12, 1970) is an American actress. She began her career as a child model before making her acting debut in the 1984 crime film ''Once Upon a Time in America''. After having worked as a model for several year ...

as John Nash and his wife

Alicia Nash Alicia Esther Nash (née Lardé Lopez-Harrison; January 1, 1933 – May 23, 2015) was a Salvadoran-American physicist. The wife of mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr., she was a mental-health care advocate, who gave up her professional aspiration ...

respectively. It won numerous awards, including the

Academy Award for Best Picture The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) since the awards debuted in 1929. This award goes to the producers of the film and is the only category ...

and Best Adapted Screenplay for

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

at the

74th Academy Awards The 74th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), took place on March 24, 2002, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles. During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards (common ...

.2001 Academy Awards Winners and History - filmsite.org
/ref>

References

External links

Presentation on ''A Beautiful Mind'' by Sylvia Nasar for the Harvard Coop, June 24, 1999Presentation on ''A Beautiful Mind'' by Sylvia Nasar for the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression, February 7, 2002
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beautiful Mind, A 1998 non-fiction books American biographies Biographies and autobiographies of mathematicians Unauthorized biographies Biographies adapted into films Simon & Schuster books Universities and colleges in art National Book Critics Circle Award-winning works