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May 29, 2003
Math Is Sexy
To make my daily bus rides to and from work a little more bearable, I've been reading A Beautiful Mind (the biography, not the movie synopsis). My sister gave it to me for my birthday, and I'm now more than halfway done.
The book paints a completely different picture of Nash than the movie did. The movie made him out to be a brilliant mathematician who was stricken with a horrible disease. The book makes him out to be a brilliant mathematician and complete asshole who was stricken with a horrible disease. I won't turn this post into a John Nash bashing, but I do want to talk about his academic life and how it relates to my experiences.
Nash would have heated debates with some mathematicians about advanced theorems and proofs. I did not. With others, he forged homosexual relationships. I did not (not that there's anything wrong with that). This got me wondering what went on behind the closed doors of my professors' tiny offices.
Heated debates on the fundamentals of mathematics? I never heard anyone raise their voices.
Gay encounters? I never heard any rumours.
I guess either Nash's situation was unique, or we have a lot of pent-up professors at Waterloo.