Friday, April 12, 2002

For My Math Major Friend...

You know who you are.

This is for you over at the NY Times.

As usual, I have not bothered to see a popular with the masses movie -- A Beautiful Mind. Despite the Oscar buzz, Ron Howard is not on my director tracking list. Just not edgy enough. The man does not take the risks I like.

Maybe I will get around to watching it -- but only for Jennifer Connelly who I loved in Labyrinth and Once Upon A Time In America.

Which is not to say I didn't follow the controversy surrounding the production of the movie and the stink just prior to the Oscars -- the anti-semitic charges and gossip about Nash's homosexuals proclivities being washed over, etc.

However, this article is in the business section, not the scandal page and examines what Nash really did in the math world.

Evidently his professional achievements were not interesting enough to make the movie. However, the math games the reporter uses to illustrate Nash's theory are fun and enough outside my daily number play to require thought.

I also thought the last paragraph was cute.

So here it is -- cut and pasted for your edification and delight:

Back to picking up girls. In the movie, the fictional John Nash described a strategy for his male drinking buddies, but didn't look at the game from the woman's perspective, a mistake no game theorist would ever make. A female economist I know once told me that when men tried to pick her up, the first question she asked was: "Are you a turkey?" She usually got one of three answers: "Yes," "No," and "Gobble-gobble." She said the last group was the most interesting by far. Go figure.

posted by Bohica at 5:21 AM