"Beautiful Mind" and Nash Equilibrium

On Sunday afternoon, I took a break from my busy schedule and watched the 74th Oscar-winning film, "A Beautiful Mind" online.

What I didn’t expect was that I would be so shocked and shocked. At the end of the film, when John Nash finally recovered from the torture of hallucinations and schizophrenia and won the Nobel Prize in Mathematics, I, who was already five years old, couldn't help but burst into tears.

After watching it and thinking about it carefully, I realized that the reason why I was moved is that I have a connection with "Beautiful Mind".

My relationship with this film first began in 2007.

In 2007, I went to the United States for an official visit with a delegation. I once visited and stayed at Princeton University in New Jersey for a short period of time. During my one-day stay and stroll at Princeton University, I heard an unforgettable story about the prototype of the protagonist in the film "A Beautiful Mind."

I remember people introducing it at the time emphasized Princeton University’s tolerance for professors and academics. It is said that a mathematician was brought in from the UK to be a professor. However, he did not write a paper or teach a class for nine whole years. He received a high salary as a professor at Princeton University and made no contribution to the school for nine whole years. Nine years later, the crazy professor had a flash of inspiration, wrote an article, and immediately won the Nobel Prize in Mathematics. After asking the introducer and mathematician’s name in detail, no clear answer was obtained. So much so that when I introduced this anecdote to others after returning to China, I was a bit vague. At that time, there was only one sigh: such a situation would not exist in any university or research institute in China. Do you think, under the requirement that academic evaluations are conducted every year and papers must be published in core journals, how could a lunatic be allowed to live in a manhole without shit for nine years? Of course, there is an element of deduction in this hearsay story, but the prototype has finally been found, and that is the protagonist of "A Beautiful Mind".

Is the scientist I heard about at Princeton University the same Nash who created game theory? No way to prove it. If others don't tell you what they say, let us just listen to it!

My relationship with this film also stems from my life as a government-sponsored student abroad in Singapore and Harvard.

Among the courses in Singapore and Harvard are Mankiw and Pindy’s Principles of Microeconomics and Introduction to Economics, which contains an important modern economic theory called Nash equilibrium in game theory, and Nash equilibrium A well-known example of the theory is the famous "Prisoner's Dilemma".

How important the "Nash equilibrium" theory is to modern economics cannot be described in a short language. It has undoubtedly become the basic theory of modern economics. Nash equilibrium is also called game theory, which is used to analyze the dynamic balance decision-making results of individuals in a group game state, where everyone's optimal decision-making affects each other in a dynamic state.

There is an academic joke in economics. Originally, someone described that as long as a butterfly can analyze the words "demand" and "supply", a butterfly can become an economist; but now, with the theory of Nash equilibrium, if a butterfly wants to become an economist, I'm afraid I have to learn the vocabulary of Nash Equilibrium on the basis of the original two words.

I think the most important thing described in "A Beautiful Mind" is Nash's wife. It was the tolerance and patience of this great woman that allowed the mathematical genius, who was already suffering from a serious schizophrenia, to still struggle between reality and illusion. In the end, he finally learned to try and learn step by step despite being unable to completely get rid of illusion. The phantom persists, slowly ignoring them.

The Princeton University administration and friends’ tolerance for this mad genius finally led to the Nobel Prize being awarded to a mostly sober mathematical genius.

Perhaps the most embarrassing thing about the film, and the thing that touches my heart the most, is how it treats and tolerates some geniuses with mental and spiritual disabilities.

Today, while watching the video, I finally connected my visit to Princeton University a few years ago, my study life in Singapore and Harvard, and the theory of economics.

What attracted me was not only the fascinating plot of the film, but also the filming environment at Princeton University and Harvard University, which reminded me of the time I spent studying abroad last year.

This is why I was moved and why I feel that this film is destined for me.