The Real Story Behind “A Beautiful Mind”

Ph.D and the Nash Equilibrium

By the time John was 20 in 1950, he had achieved his Ph.D. He did so by completing a 28-page dissertation on non-cooperative games. The work detailed complicated properties of game theory, called the Nash equilibrium. In the movie, you see John agonizing over finding his ‘original idea’, spurred on by the worry he would never find it and the intense competition from Martin Hansen. This rivalry was accurate. His work on this subject would be a defining thread throughout his career and he would go on to publish several papers on the subject. While everything in his work life was coming up roses, his personal life was not a simple equation.