Volume 1, Issue 1
Page 38
In Remembrance…
By Kalindu deshitha
John F+ Nash Jr+
(1928–2015)
Most of you wouldn’t recognize him, but he was a legend in
applied mathematics, an icon+ John Forbes Nash Junior, or
Johnny Nash as he called by his family, was born June 13th,
1928 in Bluefield, West Virginia+ John F+ Nash senior was a native of Texas+ He was an electrical engineer and served in the
military in France during World War 1 for a year+ He then went
to lecture on electrical engineering in the University of Texas,
before he joined the Appalachian Power Company in Bluefield+ He married Margaret Virginia martin in 1924, who was
also was known simply as Virginia, who had an university education and studied languages+ Before meeting john Nash, she
was a school
teacher for 10
years+ When
Virginia gave
birth John Nash
Junior, the Episcopal Church,
where he was baptized an spent most of his time in, described him to be “ …a singular little boy,
solitary and introverted…”+
He was brought up in a loving family, and during school he wasn’t
recognized for his early show of talent and genius by his teachers
and it would appear that he gave them little reason to realize that he
had extraordinary talents+ They were more conscious of his lack of
social skills and, because of this, labeled him as backward+ But he
didn’t care, and at age 22+ He published highly influential thesis “Noncooperative Games” in the journal Annals of Mathematics+ He joined
the faculty of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1951, but resigned in the late 19550s+ in 1994, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for
Economics for his landmark work on the mathematics of the game
theory+ His struggles with dealing with
acute schizophrenia and recovery were
the subject of the Academy Award
winning biopic A Beautiful Mind (2001),
directed by Ron Howard and starring
Russell Crowe+ On May 23, 2015, Nash
and his wife died when a taxi they were
riding in lost control and crashed on the
New Jersey Turnpike+ He was 86+ We
take this opportunity to let the world
know and remember about him, so we
can keep his memory alive++
“The Episcopal Church described
him to be “ …a singular little boy,
solitary and introverted…”.”