Making it add up for GF-4. (Commentary).(Brief Article)(Column)

I just finished reading A Beautiful Mind, the biography of Nobel laureate John Forbes Nash Jr. Although I never saw the movie, I can't imagine that it does justice to Sylvia Nasar's careful and scholarly, yet emotionally compelling story of this brilliant man whose mathematical skills and accomplishments were for so long overshadowed by his struggles with schizophrenia.

While it is almost always fascinating to consider how and why a person might succumb to mental illness, what have remained in my mind are Nasar's descriptions about the breadth and depth of Nash's work in mathematics. And out of all of Nash's work, his seminal contributions to the field of game theory …