2.Carnegie
Institute of Technology
Nash went Pittsburgh for learning chemical engineer. However, the
interest of to mathematics complied him to spend time on the Mobius Knots and
Diophantine equation instead of the engineer lab.
In Pittsburgh was full of industries
pollutions. The Carnegie Institute of Technology was on the half way of the
mountain. Like Richard Cherty said “This place was very backward.” None of the
noble people would send their children to this school because its environment
was very awful. (Carnegie became a very good university during the war)
Nash came to Pittsburgh was in June 1945.
He lost his interest in engineering in the first semester because he said he
did not life standards, and he always made lots of troubles in laboratory. When
he struggled in the lab, there were a large group of gifted students came to
this school like famous writer John Synge and Alexander Weinstein (he worked
with Einstein). At the same time, he started to be fascinated by math. Many
math professors was shocked by Nash. At first, Nash hesitated that whether the
job could make a living for. However, he still chose it.
In the new school, lots of students
found their similarities with each other, although they did not in these old
schools. Nevertheless, Nash did not find similar one. In spite of teachers’
high expectation on him, other students still thought him as an odd one. Other
students tried to make friends, but they could not bear Nash’ bad temper and
wired thoughts. So, he was very lonely at that time. He was like a child, when
other people made fun of him, he just knew used his own way of protect himself.
There was a math competition called
William Lowell Putnam Math Competition. Nash was very confident at that time.
Nonetheless, he never got the first five prize. He was frustrated even he won
enough honor from all over the world, he still could not forget the depression
brought by the competition.
Nash would help the teacher Richard
Duffin to solve the problem with examples and counter-examples when teacher
went to wrong way. The student Bott described Nash “He was infinitely more
sophisticated than the rest of us. He understood the difficult point naturally.
When Duffin got stunk, Nash could back him up. The rest of us didn’t understand
the techniques you needed in this new medium”
Before the graduation, he was
selected by three top universities. He chose to Princeton University because
this school seeks talent with strong eagerness, and it is full the people in
the math field.
Lefschetz helped Nash to find a job
during the summer in White Oak, Washington. Nash always walked around alone,
and did not do a lot of work.
Thoughts: Nash was
a very wired person; he never fit in any group of people since he was a child.
Even though he went a school where has lots of gifted students like him, he still
was alone. Defiantly, he is genius because he has amazing acumen on math. He
could use the way that other people could not even consider to solve the new
problem. Loneliness was also the one of the significant reason why Nash could
be a better student. But the loneliness also could be a dangerous bomb that
ambushed inside him.