Wednesday, May 12, 2010

A Beautiful Mind (2001)


A Beautiful Mind is a memorable biographical film that has won 4 well-deserved Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress, Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Writer.

John Nash, portrayed convincingly by Russell Crowe, is an intellectual math prodigy who could solve the most mind-numbing problems that would bewilder even the greatest mathematicians and is a promising student at Princeton University. For his thesis paper, John is attempting to develop a truly original idea, resulting in a brilliant theory on mathematical economics.

Near the beginning, he admits that he is “better at numbers than people.” However, his unexpected roommate, Charles, is ultimately his best friend. Though he has several other influential acquaintances.

5 years later, he becomes a professor at MIT where John writes a complex problem on the board during calculus and challenges his students to solve it, stating that it would take the average student their whole lives to solve it and some would take a few months. However, no one was able to solve the complex problem, not even one of his most intellectual students, Alicia Larde, portrayed by Jennifer Connelly, whom he married later on.

One day, John meets William Parcher, a Department of Defense Agent who is represented by Ed Harris, and is asked to the Pentagon to decipher an intricate encryption. He remarkably solves it mentally, astounding the other code-breakers, which led him to being pursued by a black car and ever since then John became paranoid and behaves erratically. Alicia is under tremendous stress after realizing her husband is suffering from a mental disorder called schizophrenia. An interlude of hallucinations and delusional state of mind was enough to subject their marriage on a brink.

Eventually, John discovers that William Parcher and his best friend Charles never existed and they are all fragments of his distorted mind. Now, it is nearly impossible to determine who is real and who is a product of his delusional mind.

This film does an excellent job in depicting the brilliant and delusional life of John Nash, who is known for numerous significant discoveries such as the Nash Equilibrium and the game theory, earning him a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science in 1996. In addition, it is truly inspirational and heartwarming watching John’s triumph over his lifelong battle against himself. “Nash. Who's winning - you, or you?”


Check out this equation just for fun!

Ck Embedding Theorem
If M= m-dimensional Riemannian manifold, then there is a number, n (n=m2 + 5m + 3)
Every point p of M, the derivative (dfp) is a linear map from the tangent space (TpM)
(u,v) = dfp(u) X dfp(v)
Partial Differential Equation (PDE)

A Gum's Life (2009) - Festivals