Beautiful Mind, A

John Nash was hearing voices. Not real voices. Voices within his head.

In his Nobel autobiography, Dr. Nash describes what he went through:

The mental disturbances originated in the early months of 1959 at a time when Alicia happened to be pregnant. And as a consequence I resigned my position as a faculty member at M.I.T. and, ultimately, after spending 50 days under 'observation,' at the McLean Hospital, travelled to Europe and attempted to gain status there as a refugee.

Some of his colleagues had earlier wondered whether Nash's eccentric behavior was related to medical problems. Norbert Wiener was one of the first to suspect it. Other people, like Emil Artin, did not want Nash as a colleague because of his aggressive personality.

But on the day John was admitted to McLean Hospital, Isador M. Singer (an M.I.T. office-sharing colleague) saw a completely different person:

Robert Lowell, the manic depressive poet, was also in the hospital...There was Mrs. Nash, sitting there pregnant...Robert Lowell was sounding forth. And there was Nash, very quiet and almost not moving...I've had that picture in my mind for years. I focused mostly on his wife and the coming child. I remember thinking, 'It's all over for him.'