Following the October 2001 Newsletter article about the books from Hardy's Library which are now at De Morgan House there have been a number of developments. A major breakthrough was receiving a copy of the Galloway & Porter 1971 catalogue all the way from Australia, due to the generosity of Peter Lowe. Professor Lowe has also supplied some details of the Hardy books that he purchased himself. In addition a few other members have contributed details of the volumes that they acquired or made suggestions as to where books may be.

Another lead came through a catalogue of books offered for sale by David Esplin, an antiquarian bookseller specialising in history of science and technology. This listed Sullivan's History of Mathematics in Europe with the details "bequeathed by GH Hardy to New College Oxford". A copy of Hardy's will was obtained from the London Probate Office and this confirmed that, although Littlewood was to have first choice from his library, Hardy bequeathed "such of the remainder ... as they may select to the Warden and Fellows of New College Oxford to be used as they may judge for the convenience of persons engaged in mathematical research in Oxford". The Librarian of New College confirmed that they still had most of the bequest which was received in 1948. However, a rationalisation of Library stock in 2001 had resulted in a small number of Hardy's books being sold to the bookseller Francis Edwards of Hay-on-Wye, whence they were acquired by David Esplin. The New College connection has had two positive results in the quest for Hardy's books. First, the LMS has been able to recover four of the New College volumes. Secondly, I paid a visit to New College Library and was able to identify and list the remaining Hardy books, 36 in total, that are currently dispersed amongst the Mathematics collection. These have been added to the database that, it is hoped, will eventually collate information on all of Hardy's books including current or last known location and enable the LMS to recreate a "virtual" Hardy Library.

Janet Foster

LMS Archivist

The film A Beautiful Mind tells the story of the Princeton mathematician John Nash. Nash emerges in the early 50s as one of his generation's most talented mathematicians. His great breakthrough is the invention of a new discipline, Game Theory, or the mathematical analysis of rational human behaviour. In his early thirties Nash's life is destroyed by the onset of schizophrenia. His work on rational decision making is overtaken by a mind filled with irrational numerological observations and conspiracy theories. But after thirty years in the wilderness he suddenly emerges from the fog which had engulfed him. His remarkable remission from what is regarded by many as a degenerative condition coincides with the award in 1994 of the Nobel Prize for economics.

The film is based on the compelling biography of the same name by Sylvia Nasar. Nasar's book describes very sympathetically the world that mathematicians inhabit and gives an excellent insight into what it is like to be obsessed with mathematics. I feared then that the film would merely be a watered down rerun of the book I had so enjoyed.

The film turned out to be a complete surprise. Nasar's biography builds up a picture of the world around Nash through a sequence of fascinating interviews with Nash's colleagues. The reader looks from the outside in. The film on the other hand places you directly inside the head of Nash. In contrast to the book, we are made to look from the inside out. Where the book deals little with what Nash was actually experiencing in his mind beyond references to conspiracy theories, the film very graphically creates three imaginary characters that inhabit Nash's life. I do not know whether schizophrenia induces such graphic images but as a creative tool, it worked remarkably well.

There have been many criticisms of the film. An important theme of Nasar's biography is Nash's sexuality: how Nash had a crush on Paul Cohen; how he was arrested for exposing himself in a public place, all things which are obviously important to Nash's feeling of alienation during the homophobic fifties. The film on the other hand shies away from tackling such a thorny issue. We are presented instead with a simple love story. Nash's wife, Alicia, brilliantly played by Jennifer Connelly, remains with Nash through the thirty dark years of his mental illness. In the film it is her love that is responsible for Nash's subsequent remission. Some have criticised Hollywood for ignoring Nash's ambiguous sexuality as not commercially viable. The film already has such strong themes that one can understand the creative wish not to explore this part of Nash's life too. But perhaps it is a reflection on our MTV culture that film-makers believe that audiences are not up to negotiating such complexities.

And what of the mathematics? Nash spends his time chalking his ideas up on the windows around Princeton. The equations are a vehicle in the film to enforce the sense of Nash's own private world. There is a small glimpse of the ideas that Nash introduced which so revolutionised economics. Nash's mathematical breakthrough emerges during an explanation of how his four friends can ensure that they all get laid one evening by all avoiding competing for the beautiful blond. But Nash's mathematics is by no means a central theme of the film.

The Riemann Hypothesis has a walk on part. The first public indication of Nash's mental decline was a rambling lecture he gave on his ideas for a solution to the Riemann Hypothesis which involved spurious connections to space-time and quantum physics. Perhaps rather insightful considering the subsequent discovery of connections with quantum chaos. During his wilderness years Nash continued to work on the Riemann Hypothesis in the hope that a solution will convince the world more than anything that he had not lost his youthful brilliance.

As Nasar's book testifies, it was indeed Nash's mathematics which alerted the world in Princeton to Nash's remission some thirty years later. Peter Sarnak recalls his astonishment at Nash's insightful comments after a seminar Sarnak gave on the Riemann Hypothesis. The film's depiction of this third act in Nash's life is probably the most mawkish section of the film. The attempts to age Crow and Connelly also stretch one's suspension of disbelief to the limit - both look like latex puppets off Spitting Image.

Despite this I felt that the film rose above all the criticisms I had read in the media and complemented my enjoyment of Nasar's biography. The film joins a growing catalogue of artistic pieces that cast mathematicians as mad, emotionless outsiders - pieces like the films Pi and A Mirror Has Two Faces, William Boyd's book Brazzaville Beach or David Auburn's Pulitzer winning play Proof. Nevertheless, recruiting a former Gladiator to portray the mathematical battle that rages daily in our minds cannot do mathematics too much harm.

Marcus du Sautoy