A Beautiful Mind

There are many anecdotes about renowned eccentric Princetonians, including the scientist Hubert Alyea, who served as the inspiration for The Absent-Minded Professor, or Ralph Nader, who allegedly had his own library key while he was a student. Or the "Phantom of Fine Hall," a character that a lot of students had spotted moving around the math and physics building's hallways while writing numerology treatises on the whiteboards and donning purple shoes. John Nash, a gifted mathematician of his day, fell victim to schizophrenia in the 1950s and became known as The Phantom. Game theory, which formed the foundation of most of economics by the 1980s, had been the subject of his most significant research. Nash's name naturally surfaced when the Nobel medal committee started discussing a medal for game theory, but it was quickly removed since it was obvious that a lunatic could not get the honor. However, Nash shared the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economics for work completed almost 45 years earlier when he was in remission from schizophrenia.

A comprehensive biography of Nash has been prepared by writer and economist Sylvia Nasar, who examines every aspect of his life. She presents his mathematical concepts in an insightful and easily understood manner and paints an emotive, if very unromantic, image of schizophrenia. Her description of the intrigues surrounding Nash's Nobel Prize winnings is one of the few in literature that is this detailed (the Nobel committees could teach the CIA a few things).