Remembering John Nash
It was an afternoon of Monday, May 9 2011 (the so-called ‘Victory Day’ in post-Soviet Union countries — that’s how I remember). For the previous 2 weeks, I was busy working on my final project for the Information Retrieval course — Natural Language Processing project which aimed to teach Japanese grammar with example sentences. The Spring semester was about to end, and I was struggling with my New Jersey pollen allergies while having a lunch with a friend at the Frist Campus Center.
We were sitting at the table right next to the tray return conveyors, so when I spotted a familiar figure returning his tray, I decided to approach him. That was indeed Prof. Nash. The topic for the conversation was not hard to find, as just a couple of days before on the Kazakh news sites, I saw that he was one of 6 Nobel Laureates who attended the annual Astana Economic Forum in my hometown. Apparently, he just got back from the forum past Friday. We talked about his meeting with the Prime Minister, the fact that the meeting with the President was cancelled on the last minute. He said it was his first time in Kazakhstan and his second time in the former Soviet Union country (he’s been to Saint Petersburg a couple of times) and one thing that surprised him was the fact that all the signs in the Central Asian country were in Cyrillic (not Chinese). We chatted for about 5–10 minutes. I guess, that’s how you blow an opportunity to talk mathematics with the legendary mathematician.
Next year in May 2012 he attended the Astana Economic Forum once again. It just so happened that he flew back on the same Lufthansa Astana -> Frankfurt flight with my family who were traveling to the US for my graduation. My mom told me how over the course of the flight a few times on his way back from the restroom he stopped by my younger brother Nurym and in complete silence watched him time his 4x4x4 Rubik’s cube solves.
One year later in May 2013 while browsing the shelves of The Labyrinth Bookstore in downtown Princeton I stumbled upon the book “The Essential John Nash” which with plain and informal style attempts to explain the Nash’s diverse contributions to game theory as well as pure mathematics. It was so good that I finished one chapter right at the store and took the book home.
The world lost a beautiful mind. Rest in peace, Prof. Nash. The Phantom of Fine Hall.
