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Prologue, Chapters 1-2

• John Forbes Nash Jr. came from Bluefield, West Virginia, and became well known as a mathematician in 1948; genius eventually caused Nash to slip into madness in his thirties.

• Chapter One discusses Nash's childhood in Bluefield; his parents married on September 6, 1924, lived in the coal mining mountains of West Virginia, and became Episcopalians.

• John Sr. worked for Appalachian Power and was steadily employed through the Depression.

• After taking courses at Bluefield College, Johnny won a Westinghouse Scholarship to the Carnegie Institute of Technology.
• Chapter Two tells of John's years at Carnegie, from 1945 to 1948; he originally planned to be a chemical engineer but changed to mathematics.

• By the end of his second year, Nash had the reputation of being a genius and students would come to him for help.

• John was disappointed in March 1947 when he didn't score in the top five in the William Putnam Mathematical...

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