ADYSSA RISKA L. Z.
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Business Economics – YP47A

A Beautiful Mind – Movie Review

A Beautiful Mind is a story based on the life of the famous mathematician John Forbes Nash. His contributions to mathematics are outstanding. When he was an undergraduate, he proved Brouwer's fixed point theorem. He then broke one of Riemann's most perplexing mathematical problems and became famous for the Nash Solution. From then on, Nash provided breakthrough after breakthrough in mathematics. In 1958 John Forbes Nash was described as being 'the most promising young mathematician in the world'. John solved problems in mathematics that many mathematicians deemed not solvable. On the threshold of such a promising and outstanding career, he then went on to suffer through three decades of a devastating form of paranoid schizophrenia. He lost his teaching professions and his job. He refused all medical treatment and spent years in and out of delusional states. Remarkably, in 1994 John won the Nobel Prize in Economic Science for his work on Game Theory.
Game Theory is an analytical tool to understand the phenomena behind the way decision-makers interact. Nash's work on Game Theory in the early stages has Nash comparing it to football, pigeon feeding habits and picking up women. It's the bar scene where Nash has his big 'Ah Ha' moment. While Nash and his friends all have their eyes on the same blonde woman, he surprises his colleagues with the question that if we all want the same woman, nobody wins, if we all go after her friends (brunette woman), nobody wins, and thus there must be a solution to ensure that everyone wins. With that, Nash writes a formula on a napkin, rushes out of the bar and works feverishly on his new theory.
The situation at the bar is an example of a game: the boys are the players and the actions they may choose (either "go for the blonde" or "go for a brunette") are called strategies. Each boy has to decide what to do without knowing what the others will do. There exists obvious strategic interaction among the players. Game Theory gives the players solid recommendations on their optimal strategy and provides an external observer with a prediction of the outcome of the interaction.
In many ways, the notion of equilibrium is the central concept in Game Theory, which has led to a revolution in the field of economics. John Nash's creative work in Game Theory has of course had the most profound influence on both its mathematics and its practical applications in economics.