A Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius John Nash

约翰·纳什的美丽境界

By Marc Duane Anderson ■漱玉 选注

获得多项奥斯卡奖的电影《美丽境界》确有原型，他就是当代数学家约翰·纳什。纳什是一个天才，是普林斯顿大学教授、诺贝尔经济学奖获得者。他在博弈论方面的重大发现甚至改变了我们的生活。但另一方面，纳什也是一个悲剧人物，其一生为精神分裂症所困扰，遭受着常人所不能想象的痛苦。纳什一方面凭借自己那聪慧绝伦的大脑取得了非凡的成就，另一方面也在与他的大脑进行着顽强的抗争。

The first annual report of the New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum1 contained the following descriptive passage: "Reposing in the midst of the most beautiful scenery in the valley of the Delaware, combining all the influences which human art and skill can command to bless, soothe, and restore the wandering intellects that are gathered at its bosom."2 Pretty insightful stuff3, considering it was written in 1848; and especially poignant4 when it comes to the life of John Forbes Nash, Jr. He was not only a "wandering intellect," but a genius who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia5 and was in and out of mental institutions for most of his life. As is said, Nash's story could be divided into "three acts: genius, madness, reawakening."

Naturally introverted6, even at a young age, John Nash was described as being "bookish and slightly odd." His mother had him reading by the time he was four and instead of coloring books, his father gave him science books to read. But despite their efforts, the young Nash was prone to daydreaming in school, which led his teachers to describe him as an underachiever7. A loner, his best friends were books. By the time he was 12, his room resembled a science lab. He was always the last to be chosen for baseball, and at a school dance he danced with chairs rather than girls.

Although his elementary school math teachers complained he couldn't do the work, his mother observed he wasn't following the teachers' instructions because he had devised a simpler way to solve the problems. By high school, he was solving problems his chemistry teacher wrote on the blackboard without using pencil or paper. In college, his math professors would call on Nash when they themselves ran into problems solving complex equations they were presenting to their classes.

But together with his brilliance were eccentricities that became more evident as Nash aged8; the repeated playing of the same chord on the piano; an ice cream cone9 left to melt on a pile of clothes; pouting after losing a game or an argument; constantly whistling Bach10. Those close to him characterized him as "disconnected" and "deeply unknowable."

Fiercely independent, Nash rarely discussed the problems he was working on with anyone but he seemed to have an intuitive, irrational capability for the possible, which allowed him to devise unique solutions to (often previously unsolvable) problems.11 He had little use for textbooks and was known to work in his office from 10:00 p.m. till 3:00 a.m., solving difficult problems using "no references but his own mind." His peers called the results he was able to obtain "beautiful" and "striking".12

Perhaps his greatest achievement being his work on game theory,13 which led to a Nobel Prize for economics in 1994. He possessed a true love of discovery—he just had to know about things. While swimming with a friend in California, the two were dragged out to sea by an undercurrent and nearly drowned. Finally reaching shore exhausted, the friend was grateful for surviving while Nash, after briefly catching his breath, re-entered the surf exclaiming, "I wonder if that was an accident. I think I'll go back in and see."

By the age of 30 it became apparent Nash was more than just eccentric as he started to display symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia: behaving suspiciously, becoming suspect of others, and finally announcing that "abstract powers from outer space" were communicating with him through encrypted messages printed in the New York Times14 and broadcast by radio stations. He developed "an obsession with the stock and bond markets," investing his mother's savings, convinced he could outsmart15 the markets and earn a profit. Instead, the results were "disastrous, to say the least." He was offered a prestigious chair in the mathematics department at the University of Chicago—something he had long strived for— but the chairman of the department received a strange letter from Nash declining the offer since he had decided to become the "Emperor of Antarctica"16 instead.

However, according to a graduate student there at the time, Nash kept his sense of humor during his illness, recalling, "He knew he was crazy and he made little jokes about it."And when he underwent long periods of hospitalization, he even was told by another patient, "Professor, let me show you how one uses a broom."
By now, his illness had gone into remission17 and he was able to stop taking antipsychotic18 drugs while learning to separate rational thinking from delusional thinking. In spite of his amazing recovery, awarding him with the Nobel Prize was a contentious issue due to his history of schizophrenia. But once awarded, there was resolve that the right decision had been made about a very worthy individual. One committee member recalls, "We resurrected19 him in a way. It was emotionally satisfying." Soon after the announcement, Nash half-joked "he hoped that getting the Nobel would improve his credit rating because he really wanted a credit card."20

1．lunatic asylum/2#sail2m/ ：<旧>，疯人院，现称mental hospital。
2．（精神病院）坐落在特拉华州一个风景最优美的盆地，充分利用人类艺术和技能的所有影响力，来保护、抚慰那些聚集在其温暖怀抱中的神志恍惚的智者们并使他们恢复正常。
3．相当有见解的描述。
4．poignant：切中要害的。
5. paranoid schizophrenia /;skidz2u#fri:ni2/:[心]妄想型精神分裂症。
6．introverted：（性格）内向的，不爱交际的。
7．underachiever：学习成绩不良的学生，学习成绩低于智力测试一般水平的学生。
8．与他的才智同样引人注目的是他的古怪，这一点随着年龄的增长愈发明显。
9．ice cream cone：蛋卷冰淇淋。
10．总是用口哨吹巴赫的曲子。Bach：（1685-1750），德国作曲家，管风琴家，出身于爱森纳赫的音乐世家，作品丰富，多用复调音乐写成，把巴罗克音乐推向顶峰，对西方音乐发展有深远的影响。
11.他似乎对可能的答案有一种直觉的、非理性的能力，这使他能想出独一无二的答案， 解决那些先前通常无法解决的难题。
12.他的同行称他得出的结论“漂亮”、“惊人”。
13. game theory：[数]博奕论，对策论。
14．宣称来自太空的某种抽象能力正通过印在《纽约时报》上的密码文字与他进行交流。encrypt：把……译成密码(或电码)。
15. outsmart：智胜，比……更机灵。
16. Antarctica：南极洲。
17. get into remission：得到缓解，减轻。
18. antipsychotic：精神抑制药，安定药。
19. resurrect：使复活，使复苏。
20. 他希望获得诺贝尔奖能够提高他的信用等级，因为他非常需要一张信用卡。