Dreams, according to his theory, represent the hidden fulfillment of our unconscious wishes.

    Since then, Sylvia Nasar's celebrated biography A Beautiful Mind, the basis of a new major motion picture, has revealed the man. The Essential John Nash reveals his work--in his own words. This book presents, for the first time, the full range of Nash's diverse contributions not only to game theory, for which he received the Nobel, but to pure mathematics--from Riemannian geometry and partial differential equations--in which he commands even greater acclaim among academics. Included are nine of Nash's most influential papers, most of them written over the decade beginning in 1949.From 1959 until his astonishing remission three decades later, the man behind the concepts "Nash equilibrium" and "Nash bargaining"--concepts that today pervade not only economics but nuclear strategy and contract talks in major league sports--had lived in the shadow of a condition diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia. In the introduction to this book, Nasar recounts how Nash had, by the age of thirty, gone from being a wunderkind at Princeton and a rising mathematical star at MIT to the depths of mental illness.In his preface, Harold Kuhn offers personal insights on his longtime friend and colleague; and in introductions to several of Nash's papers, he provides scholarly context. In an afterword, Nash describes his current work, and he discusses an error in one of his papers. A photo essay chronicles Nash's career from his student days in Princeton to the present. Also included are Nash's Nobel citation and autobiography.The Essential John Nash makes it plain why one of Nash's colleagues termed his style of intellectual inquiry as "like lightning striking." All those inspired by Nash's dazzling ideas will welcome this unprecedented opportunity to trace these ideas back to the exceptional mind they came from.

    Christopher Potter’s narrative is as imaginative, ingenious, and elegantly concise as it is user-friendly.” — Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind“A personal, brilliant, and often amusing account . . . . An idiosyncratic, encyclopedic blitzkrieg of a book.” —The Boston Globe“The Verdict: Read.” — TimeChristopher Potter’s You Are Here is a lively and accessible biography of the universe—how it fits together and how we fit into it—in the style of science writers like Richard Dawkins, Bill Bryson, and Richard Feynman, as seen through the lens of today’s most cutting-edge scientific thinking.

    Chown fearlessly addresses the big questions on the nature of the universe, the nature of reality, and the place of life in the universe. Ultimately, he says, science is about the down-to-earth things that matter to all of us. Where did the universe come from? Where did we come from? What the hell are we doing here?

    That they exist, Simon Singh reveals, underscores the brilliance of the shows' writers, many of whom have advanced degrees in mathematics in addition to their unparalleled sense of humor. While recounting memorable episodes such as “Bart the Genius” and “Homer3,” Singh weaves in mathematical stories that explore everything from p to Mersenne primes, Euler's equation to the unsolved riddle of P v. NP; from perfect numbers to narcissistic numbers, infinity to even bigger infinities, and much more. Along the way, Singh meets members of The Simpsons' brilliant writing team-among them David X. Cohen, Al Jean, Jeff Westbrook, and Mike Reiss-whose love of arcane mathematics becomes clear as they reveal the stories behind the episodes. With wit and clarity, displaying a true fan's zeal, and replete with images from the shows, photographs of the writers, and diagrams and proofs, The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets offers an entirely new insight into the most successful show in television history.