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John Nash Has Died

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Re: John Nash Has Died

#181

Post by neuronic »

kvcc01 wrote: post #24

Seeing Prof. Nash enjoying his walks on campus is one of my fondest memories from grad school. This is very sad. I was curious to learn more about his work a while ago and had looked up his PhD thesis. Here's a link: http://www.princeton.edu/mudd/news/faq/topics/Non-Cooperativ... . What struck me was that it only had 2 references to prior work! That's how you know you're doing innovative research.

During my time at Princeton I used to walk around campus all of the time. Unfortunately, I never got to witness that...

Re: John Nash Has Died

#182

Post by hackinthebochs »

awfullyjohn wrote: post #171
tomphoolery wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I never understood that social norm of not wearing a seatbelt in a taxi. I'm much more confident in my driving skills than some dude yelling in some foreign language on his cell phone the entire time we're driving because at least I'm focused on one thing at a time. Sometimes the taxi doesn't even have visible seatbelts in the back (this is Philly I'm talking about, where getting around regulation is only a…

I also never understood the social norm of not wearing a seatbelt in a taxi, but went along with it for my first few years living in New York. I think the mention of "some dude yelling in some foreign language" is unnecessary. A person's native tongue says nothing of their intellectual capacity, nor of their ability to safely navigate a city.

Considering the driving conventions in some other countries where lawlessness is the norm, I think the mention of yelling in a foreign language adds information.

Re: John Nash Has Died

#183

Post by GigabyteCoin »

dsacco wrote: post #160

He was a beautiful human being, I wish he had been wearing a seatbelt. Maybe when we have self-driving cars men and women like John and Alicia won't have to be killed in "accidents" caused by people who don't understand how to drive without murdering others.

Just because you "understand how to drive" doesn't mean you are protected from being killed while driving.

Re: John Nash Has Died

#184

Post by davidp »

tyfon wrote: post #18
po wrote: post #6

Such a tragic loss. Like many people, I never wore a seatbelt while riding in a taxi. I'm not really sure why, it just seemed somehow to be the social norm and I went along with it. Then one day, my co-worker and his girlfriend were both severely injured while in an accident crossing the east river in manhattan. Ever since then, I've gotten in the habit of using my seatbelt while in a taxi, car, bus, or whatever. Som…

I _always_ buckle up, even in bus. I've gotten looks from taxi drives in south Europe for this, they treat it as an insult. I feel it's better to insult than be dead. Afaik since you get fined quite severely in Norway where I live (and most of Europe) if you don't wear a seat belt, the rate of use is much higher than the US. He will be missed. Hopefully it can put focus on such a simple thing to save lives.

> I've gotten looks from taxi drives in south Europe for this, they treat it as an insult. I feel it's better to insult than be dead.

It's easier than that -- just tell the driver you're not worried about him or her, but about the other drivers on the road.

Re: John Nash Has Died

#185

Post by tim333 »

nnutter wrote: post #128

The metro buses I ride in to St. Louis do not have seat belts, do not have soft seats, and are not high but they drive on the freeway at 65+ MPH. It's even legit just to stand which I've done when the bus is crowded. None of this has ever felt safe to me but I assumed someone had determined that it was. For instance, I had not known how effective school busses' high, padded seats were at protecting its passengers unt…

Apparently (1998 figures) in the US about 41,000 people die in road accidents of which about four are motorcoach passengers. So in general anything to get people onto busses rather than cars would be a plus.

http://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Pages/Bus_Crashworthiness.as...

Re: John Nash Has Died

#186

Post by armansu »

Remembering John Nash

It was an afternoon of Monday, May 9 2011 (the so-called ‘Victory Day’ in post-Soviet Union countries - that’s how I remember). For the previous 2 weeks, I was busy working on my final project for the Information Retrieval course - Natural Language Processing project which aimed to teach Japanese grammar with example sentences. The Spring semester was about to end, and I was struggling with my New Jersey pollen allergies while having a lunch with a friend at the Frist Campus Center.

We were sitting at the table right next to the tray return conveyors, so when I spotted a familiar figure returning his tray, I decided to approach him. That was indeed Prof. Nash. The topic for the conversation was not hard to find, as just a couple of days before on the Kazakh news sites, I saw that he was one of 6 Nobel Laureates who attended the annual Astana Economic Forum in my hometown. Apparently, he just got back from the forum past Friday. We talked about his meeting with the Prime Minister, the fact that the meeting with the President was cancelled on the last minute. He said it was his first time in Kazakhstan and his second time in the former Soviet Union country (he's been to Saint Petersburg a couple of times) and one thing that surprised him was the fact that all the signs in the Central Asian country were in Cyrillic (not Chinese). We chatted for about 5-10 minutes. I guess, that’s how you blow an opportunity to talk mathematics with the legendary mathematician.

Next year in May 2012 he attended the Astana Economic Forum once again. It just so happened that he flew back on the same Lufthansa Astana -> Frankfurt flight with my family who were traveling to the US for my graduation. My mom told me how over the course of the flight a few times on his way back from the restroom he stopped by my younger brother Nurym and in complete silence watched him time his 4x4x4 Rubik’s cube solves.

One year later in May 2013 while browsing the shelves of The Labyrinth Bookstore in downtown Princeton I stumbled upon the book “The Essential John Nash” which with plain and informal style attempts to explain the Nash’s diverse contributions to game theory as well as pure mathematics. It was so good that I finished one chapter right at the store and took the book home.

The world lost a beautiful mind. Rest in peace, Prof. Nash. The Phantom of Fine Hall.

Re: John Nash Has Died

#187

Post by elmar »

todayiamme wrote: post #86

It is always strange when people who have had an outsized impact upon others die. Prof. Nash wasn't just someone who was killed in a traffic accident. He was someone who touched the lives of many, many people in surprising ways. His work itself has a large sphere of influence that will exist without him, but I'm talking about a more personal kind of influence. He was an example of living to who you could be regardles…

"He was an example of living to who you could be regardless of what was broken inside of you or what was "missing.""

This is a wonderful legacy and i just love the way you where able to describe it on one sentence, thanks.

Re: John Nash Has Died

#188

Post by verbin217 »

elmar wrote: post #187
todayiamme wrote: post #86

It is always strange when people who have had an outsized impact upon others die. Prof. Nash wasn't just someone who was killed in a traffic accident. He was someone who touched the lives of many, many people in surprising ways. His work itself has a large sphere of influence that will exist without him, but I'm talking about a more personal kind of influence. He was an example of living to who you could be regardles…

"He was an example of living to who you could be regardless of what was broken inside of you or what was "missing."" This is a wonderful legacy and i just love the way you where able to describe it on one sentence, thanks.

I think that sort of excellence is born from resignation to "brokenness". Many many people waste their potential trying to fix the things they think they're missing.

Re: John Nash Has Died

#189

Post by fffrad »

awfullyjohn wrote: post #171
tomphoolery wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I never understood that social norm of not wearing a seatbelt in a taxi. I'm much more confident in my driving skills than some dude yelling in some foreign language on his cell phone the entire time we're driving because at least I'm focused on one thing at a time. Sometimes the taxi doesn't even have visible seatbelts in the back (this is Philly I'm talking about, where getting around regulation is only a…

I also never understood the social norm of not wearing a seatbelt in a taxi, but went along with it for my first few years living in New York. I think the mention of "some dude yelling in some foreign language" is unnecessary. A person's native tongue says nothing of their intellectual capacity, nor of their ability to safely navigate a city.

There is a culture of not wearing the seat belt as a sign of trust.

When I was in Egypt, I'd get in the cab, wear my seat belt and the driver will look at me weird. "So you don't think I can drive?"

A few years later, the police started enforcing the law and most cabs didn't even have seat belts. You would get in and find a sort of belt that doesn't even tighten, hacked together only to circumvent the law.

Not to say that in the US it is any better. If you wear a seat belt while in the back seat, you are considered weird. It is a stigma that is not easy to get rid of especially for the younger generation.

Side note: I do get some dude yelling in English too. So yes, it is irrelevant.

Re: John Nash Has Died

#190

Post by DigitalSea »

po wrote: post #16
msutherl wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to start buckling up in cabs now. Same as wearing earplugs at clubs, you might get weird looks, but it's better to be uncool than dead (or living with tinnitus).

Does it surprise you at all that I also carried around a set of earplugs on my keychain all through my college years? I highly recommend these as they don't change the audio spectrum very much compared to the foam kind: http://www.etymotic.com/consumer/hearing-protection/er20.htm... I think I just really like low-impact high-reward behaviors. People tend to over-insure for common and minor issues and under-insure for…

Great advice. I always carry around a couple of pairs of ER-20's. They're really cheap, they work well and they last a long time.
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