Keywords: John Nash, biography, game theory, mathematics
Title: The Essential John Nash
Author: Edited by Harold Kuhn and Sylvia Nasar
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Media: Book
Reviewer: Pan
Published to coincide with the interest in John Nash generated by Ron Howard's film of A Beautiful Mind, this is part photo-essay, part biography and an anthology of Nash's most important mathematical papers. Sylvia Nasar does not attempt t condense her huge biography of Nash into a few pages, but instead uses the photographs of Nash and his colleagues to paint quick portraits of him and the people he worked with.
The mathematical papers, which form the core of the book, are not for those without mathematical training. While the other sections of the book will appeal to all types of reader, the papers are not for the uninitiated. Those people interested in game theory -which was a cornerstone of US strategic thinking during the cold war - would do better to seek out a book specifically on the subject (such as Joel Watson's excellent Strategy, published by Norton). What this anthology does do is show the wide range of areas that Nash worked in - the work on game theory which garnered the Nobel prize was definitely not the only area he published in.
However, it is hard to see who the book is aimed at. Certainly there's a lot here for the mathematician, but the general reader will certainly find the mathematical papers impenetrable. Still, like the biography and the film, it is belated recognition of Nash and his work.
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