研究生英语阅读教程-提高级第二版A_reading_06.ppt

* Lesson 6 A Beautiful Mind CATALOGUE Background Information Outline Language Points Keys Oral Practice And Discussion text Background Information 1. Introduction to the Author Sylvia Nasar discovered the remarkable story of Nobel laureate John Nash as an economics reporter for the New York Times. A veteran business journalist who had been on the staffs of Fortune and U.S. News World Report, she was fascinated by Nash’s intellectual achievements and triumph over schizophrenia（精神分裂症）. Her article, The Lost Years of the Nobel Laureate, depicted his life as a three-act drama on the mysteries of the mind: genius, madness, reawakening. Background Information 2. Introduction to John Nash John Nash was a mathematical genius whose 27dissertation, “Non- Cooperative Games”, written in 1950 when he was 21, would be honored with the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994. Background Information His most important work had been in game theory (博弈论), which by the 1980s was underpinning a large part of economics. When the Nobel Prize committee began debating a prize for game theory, Nash’s name inevitably came up—only to be dismissed, since the prize clearly could not go to a mad man. But in 1994 Nash, in remission from schizophrenia, shared the Nobel Prize in economics for work done some 45 years previously. Outline Nash’s genius was of that mysterious variety more often associated with music and art than with the oldest of all sciences: It was not merely that his mind worked faster, that his memory was more retentive, or that his power of concentration was greater. The flashes of intuition were non-rational. Genius (Para. 4) Descriptions Comments on Nash Nash acquired his knowledge of mathematics not mainly form studying what other mathematicians had discovered, but by rediscovering their truths for himself. Eager to astound, he was always on the lookout for the really big problems. When he focused on some new puzzle, he saw dimensions that people who really knew