In The Shoes of John F. Nash

In The Shoes of John F. Nash

In The Shoes of John F. Nash

An ingenious mathematician, striving writer, and winner of three Nobel Peace Prizes John Forbes Nash is one phenomenal human being. He was born on June 13, 1928 to John Nash Sr. and Margaret Virginia Martin in a small town called Bluefield in West Virginia. As a young child John was very interested in books and reading. His mother was one of his greatest inspirations and taught him how to read by the age of four. Growing up John Nash was not a normal boy he was   known to be socially awkward and immature. At school his teachers would often call him an “underachiever” and would criticize his math skills and atrocious handwriting. At home instead of going out and playing sports Nash had a passion for experimentation and preferred to stay concealed in his room. At age twelve John had established a small laboratory in his bedroom where he would tamper with radios, pick apart electric gadgets, and conduct chemistry experiments.   In high school John stumbled upon a book called Men of Mathematics by E.T. Bells which opened up a new door in John‘s life. Nash was fascinated by the sketches, symbols, and mysteries between numbers in the book, which sparked a new interest for him.
In 1941 john began taking courses   at Bluefield College where he planned to study chemistry and hoped to follow in his father’s footsteps to become an engineer. However, John began to become more and more interested in mathematics and problem solving.   In 1945 Nash won a scholarship in the George Westinghouse Competition and was selected   by the Carnegie Institute of Technology to attend their college. Nash still had the intention of taking a courses in chemical engineering, but his growing interest in mathematics made him take classes on tensor calculus and relativity. At Carnegie John Nash met John Synge who was the Head of the Mathematics Department and taught the relativity course. Synge and the other mathematics professors at the institute recognized...