John Nash's Beautiful Mind

The real John Nash, like most schizophrenics, did not imagine people. He heard bizarre voices. Did aliens speak to you?

When I began to hear voices, I thought of the voices as from something of that sort.

What would say to you?

Well, you see, it's really my subconscious talking. It was really that, and, of course, I know that now.

By 1958, John Nash seemed to have it all, a beautiful wife, a remarkable career. But shortly after his 30th birthday that same year, the same year Fortune magazine named him one of the country's mathematical stars, it all began to fall apart. He began to see conspiracies and hidden messages where there were none.

Alerted, extra normally alerted to hidden truths. You're exceptionally enlightened.

That state of enlightenment is, of course, the brain disease schizophrenia, which affects up to 1% of adults, and has no cure. So many schizophrenics end up going in and out of institutions as John Nash did, so many times in the '60s. Just last week, we took Dr. Nash back to one of those asylums, Trenton Psychiatric, a hour from the Princeton campus. The police came to pick you up?

Well, that's that typical procedure.

You later called it torture.

Well, I began to think of myself as being treated like an animal.

Brilliant, creative, abrasive, and here I see him wandering the town as a homeless person, very often like a zombie. I think perhaps after he had insulin shock treatments. He really was like a zombie.

Kuhn reported back to Stockholm that this man, who had changed the face of economics in his '20s, deserves the Nobel regardless of his mental status. Did you know, at that time, that they were considering you for the Nobel?

No, I didn't have any thoughts of that type.

He was looking at you. He was scouting you. They were afraid that you might do something quote, crazy.

Yes, of course, this bad possibility.

He didn't do anything crazy, and in 1994, Dr. Nash was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, which his friend Kuhn wrote about two years later. Recognition, you write, is a cure for many ills.

Absolutely. I did. John was a person who wouldn't meet your eyes after the prize. He was a changed man. People would greet him on the streets of Princeton, he would react and answer. It just made the difference, and it continues.

It continues, of course, with the Oscar nominated film version of his life starring Russell Crowe. Russell Crowe played you in the film, would he have been your choice to play you?

No, I guess not.

Correct me, if I'm wrong, but you had the notion that maybe Tom Cruise would be the right guy.

No, that was their idea. I said, no, no, no. He's associated with these action movies, and he's rather short.

Another quarter went to his and Alicia's son, Johnny, who shares more than just a name with his father. He also shares a talent for math. Johnny earned his own PhD In 1985. And like his father, he suffers from schizophrenia.

What kind of a father was he?

Well, he wasn't around for the first 10 years of my life, but when he came back at age 10, he was a very good father, yes.

Was there any doubt in your mind that you wanted to be a mathematician?

Oh, no, there was no doubt at all.

You wanted to follow in your father's footsteps?

Absolutely, to do honor to dad, to follow in his footsteps, that was always my life's dream. I still felt that I could equal him, that I could-- I haven't done so yet, but I'm trying to.

He could do a lot if he would really think clearly. What he really needs is to get his thinking in order, you know, more rational.

More rational.

Strictly rational.

Rational thought.

Yes, it's like a diet.

You reasoned your way out of these delusions?

I became disillusioned with some of the delusions.