Maths Genius Nash Wows Beijing

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, August 22, 2002

Maths Genius Nash Wows Beijing

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Maths Genius Nash Wows Beijing

Chinese science lovers once more experienced a crazy night Wednesday in Beijing with the appearance of American John F. Nash, one of the most brilliant mathematicians of his generation, after being conquered by scientific giant Stephen Hawking three days ago.

More than 2,000 people crowded into the Beijing International Conference Center on Wednesday afternoon for the opportunity to see Nash, the real-life hero of the Oscar-winning film "A Beautiful Mind" while many others waited outside.

"I really enjoy the opportunity to know something of Nash's research, though what he is doing is far from mine", said Vladimir Dragovic, a Yugoslavian scholar in the audience.

Scholars, students, government staff and some white-collar workers are all strongly interested in the legendary story of Nashand his family, as well as his research, the Nash Equilibrium.

Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1958, he finally won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1994 after thirty years of coping with the disease. Nash's work created a sensation in the scientific world.

When he first appeared in the hall today in a dark-grey suit and wine colored tie, he received lengthy welcoming applause.

In a quiet tone, Nash started his speech with a story of "the prisoner's dilemma". He then introduced a project studying cooperation in games through modeling in terms of formally non-cooperative action in a repeated game context.

The Nobel Foundation press release describes Nash's work as "Games as the foundation for understanding complex economic issues". Nash developed an equilibrium concept for non-cooperative games that later came to be known as the Nash Equilibrium.

An undergraduate from the physics department of Peking University told Xinhua that she has great interest in the game theory, and once learned the theory at school. Nash's explanation helped her understand the theory more easily.

Most people in the audience admitted that what Nash said was hard for them to understand, but they felt excited to have a closeencounter with Nash.

Outside the hall, many scientific books are hot sellers, with Sylvia Nasar's A Beautiful Mind: A Biography of John Forbes Nash the top seller. To avoid running out, the publisher of this book had to ask his Shanghai head office to air freight more books this afternoon.

"It needs some professional knowledge to understand Nash's speech", said Zhoujin, a teacher at the Hebei University of Technology. "But it impressed me so much, and I hope to know more about this maths genius."

When Nash finished his speech and was ready to leave, many young students crowded forward and tried to ask for his autograph. Almost all of them had a biography of Nash. Though prevented from doing so, they still stood there and farewelled this brilliant scientific giant in a quiet and orderly manner.

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