Nash-ville
So often, history seems...distant. Like...there's no 'heros' or great people or...excitement. I mean, we can't go be pirates (except on South Park), there's no knights, there's no dragons to slay, it's rare to come across someone taking hostages with a knife when you have a gun in your pocket, it makes...history seem like...stories. Like adventure novels. The contemporary vision of George Washington is so...cult-ivated and hero-worshipful that...he's more like King Arthur, or Robin Hood, than he is...President Obama; to the average person. He's not living and breathing. He doesn't have bad breath. Or bad days. Or cry. Or be anything but one-dimensional. All of the names in history, whether politics, art, war, science, everything...it's all...no more subjectively real to us than the characters on Game of Thrones.
However, wikipedia tells me that John Nash was just killed in a car accident. And...wow. First...he's a 'hero'. A great, amazing, superhuman seeming man. Whose mark will remain on history; his contributions to game theory, to mathematics, and even to pop culture will ensure that eventually, he'll be spoken of in the same breath as Einstein, and Tesla, and Oppenheimer. [Hero, in this sense should not be taken to mean 'good' or 'worthy of admiration' per se, merely...greater than the average person in some obvious way. I'd count President Clinton in this category too, as being a supremely gifted manipulator and orator.]
There should be more...fanfare over his death. It is...monumental. While he's always been a controversial figure...the Nash equilibrium will forever be a part of both hard and soft science discussions and applications. It's like...watching history being written. Which is...pretty spectacular. Maybe it's just me, I've always felt like...I should have been born in a more...profound age. Either with swords or laser pistols. But not...just this. But in 100s of years, people are going to look back on this time, and talk about the founding of the internet, the cellular networks, social media, and real, living breathing giants.
K.
However, wikipedia tells me that John Nash was just killed in a car accident. And...wow. First...he's a 'hero'. A great, amazing, superhuman seeming man. Whose mark will remain on history; his contributions to game theory, to mathematics, and even to pop culture will ensure that eventually, he'll be spoken of in the same breath as Einstein, and Tesla, and Oppenheimer. [Hero, in this sense should not be taken to mean 'good' or 'worthy of admiration' per se, merely...greater than the average person in some obvious way. I'd count President Clinton in this category too, as being a supremely gifted manipulator and orator.]
There should be more...fanfare over his death. It is...monumental. While he's always been a controversial figure...the Nash equilibrium will forever be a part of both hard and soft science discussions and applications. It's like...watching history being written. Which is...pretty spectacular. Maybe it's just me, I've always felt like...I should have been born in a more...profound age. Either with swords or laser pistols. But not...just this. But in 100s of years, people are going to look back on this time, and talk about the founding of the internet, the cellular networks, social media, and real, living breathing giants.
K.