A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar

The book I am reading this week is A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar. The book follows mathematician John Nash, his descent into madness, and his eventual resurrection. I am only mid-way through the second part of the book, so don't expect it to have a happy ending yet. Nash, as most great mathematicians are, was a boy genius, finding an alternate solution to a famous proof in his teens. He graduated his high school in West Virginia and won a scholarship to attend Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, which is now part of Carnegie Mellon University. This was interesting to me because in the book Carnegie is referred to as not a top-notch school, whereas now it is one of the best engineering schools in the country. Nash spent three years there before deciding to attend graduate school at Princeton. As is extensively described in the book, Princeton at that time was the greatest math school in the world, boasting an impressive faculty and an even more impressive roster of residents, such as Einstein, Godel, and von Neumann. Nash spent a few years at Princeton, where he wrote maybe his most famous paper, one that would eventually win him a Nobel Prize. His paper created the idea of Nash equilibrium points, which are points in two-player games where each player has maximal benefits. While this concept may seem to only apply to games, it has been used in economics, market theory, even military strategy. And yes, the book did become a movie with Russell Crowe.

Dubliners by James Joyce ("Ivy Day in the Committee Room")

The story "Ivy Day in the Committee Room" follows a small group of Dubliner politicians who have gathered in their party headquarters on Ivy Day. For those not familiar with this holiday, Ivy Day in Dublin is in memory of Charles Parnell, the great Irish politician. The group has gathered in the committee room seemingly by chance, but they end up reminiscing anyway about Parnell and how none of their current troubles would have occurred had Parnell been in charge. Their remembrance is touching, because it carries with it a sense of acknowledgement, that Parnell was better than any of them could hope to be. The meeting ends with a sad, almost elegiac ode to Parnell, written by the youngest member of the group. On a completely unrelated note, check out this link.