Movie: A Beautiful Mind Questions and Answers

1. What did John Nash write when he was 21? When he was 21, Nash wrote a doctoral thesis that eventually made him a Nobel Laureate. 2. How many people suffer from schizophrenia in any given year? More than 2 million Americans suffer from schizophrenia in any given year. 3. When does the onset of the illness occur? Onset of the illness often begins in the late teens or early twenties. 4. From what do schizophrenics often suffer? Schizophrenics often suffer from hallucinations, delusions, disordered thinking, and social withdrawal. Most people with schizophrenia continue to suffer chronically or episodically throughout their lives. 5. Who were some of the geniuses that John Nash was surrounded by at Princeton? Some of the geniuses at Princeton were John Louis von Neumann and Solomon Lefschetz. 6. With whom did John Nash fall in love? John Nash fell in love with Alicia Larde. 7. How old was John Nash when he became a paranoid schizophrenic? John Nash became a paranoid schizophrenic when he was 30 years old. 8. During his illness, what did John Nash hear? He heard voices. Not real voices. He heard voices within his head. 9. After Alicia divorced him, what did she allow her ex-husband to do? Alicia allowed her ex-husband to move back home. 10. When and how old was John Nash when he received the Nobel Prize? In 1994, at the age of 66, he received the Nobel Prize.

11. What are some of the symptoms of schizophrenia? Some of the symptoms of schizophrenia include hallucinations, delusions, disordered thinking and social withdrawal 12. How does Professor R. J. Duffin recall John Nash? Professor R. J. Duffin recalled John Nash as a tall, slightly awkward student who came to him one day and described a problem he thought he had solved. 13. How does Dr. Nash describe what he went through? Dr. Nash described what he went through by explaining: The mental disturbances originated in the early months of 1959 at a time when Alicia was pregnant. As a consequence I resigned my position as a faculty member at MIT, and spent 50 days in observation at McLean hospital.

14. What does Dr. Nash say about the movie which features his life? "It's very fictional, and makes me relaxed in a way. It was very disturbing psychologically overall, but when I could think of it with some apartness, it was different." Write about healing from a mental or physical illness.

15. When did John first have symptoms or problems? How long hasthis been going on? During graduate school, Johns first major hallucination was of hisroommate, Charles. Later, he had a hallucination of Charles niece. Both remained with him over many years, even after herealized they were not real. Following graduation, he did some decoding work for thegovernment, followed by his second major, long-lastinghallucination (believing that he was a secret agent), and thedelusional belief that the government had hired him to find anddecode secret messages in magazines and newspapers.