Most Maths Geniuses are Mad Geniuses, Why?

Prof. John Nash



                                                                                      I am still trying to fathom the reason why most mathematics geniuses normally suffer from one form of mental disorder or another. This trend is much more pronounced in the field of mathematics than any other fields of endeavour .

In 2005, a friend told me a story of one of his uncles who has a queer character. This said uncle made a first class in Mathematics and was working at the Central Bank of Nigeria at the time.

He recalled a day when the bank’s top management went to Aso Villa to make a presentation to the presidency on a new financial policy of the bank. After the presentation, the uncle, who came with an official car and a driver apparently forgotten he came with a car, left the venue and boarded a commercial taxi back to his office, leaving the driver stranded.

At the international scene many mathematicians have this in common, but the ones that readily comes to mind whenever I think of this are discussed below:

Prof John Forbe Nash Jr.

Prof. John Nash is perharps the most celebrated mentally challenged mathematician in the world. In 1959, he was diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia (a morbid mental illness), yet he won the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economics for his immense contributions to the modern game theory. His works on the game theory gave insight into the forces that govern “time and chance” in our daily lives


Prof. John Nash

In 1950, Nash obtained a PhD in Mathematics from Princeton University at the age of 22, and became a mathematical instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, at the age of 23. He has been a professor of Mathematical Economics at Princeton University for over half a century. During the time for his graduate studies, his advisor and former Carnegie Tech professor, R.J. Duffin wrote a letter of recommendation consisting of a single sentence: "This man is a genius.”

After showing some signs of mental illness, Nash was admitted to a hospital, and was diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia. During the time, he believed that all men who wore red ties were part of a communist conspiracy against him. Upon his release, Dr. Nash resigned from MIT, withdrew his pension, and went to Europe seeking for political asylum in France and East Germany but could not get it. He tried to renounce his U.S. citizenship. After a problematic stay in Paris and Geneva, he was arrested by the French police and deported back to the United States at the request of the U.S. government. 

Later he was admitted to various psychiatric hospitals where he stayed for over nine years. However, since early 1990’s he has been in stable condition and has resumed his scientific works, albeit in a limited way.

The popular Hollywood movie A Beautiful Mind was shot based on his biography, and focuses on his mathematical genius and schizophrenia.

 Dr. Grigori Perelman

Perelman

The Russian mathematical genius, Dr. Grigori Perelman, is currently regarded as the world’s cleverest man. Perelman solved one of the millennium mathematical problems - the Poincare Conjecture, posed by the 19th century mathematician, Henri Poincare, in 1904. Consequently, in 2006, he was awarded the Field’s Medal (a prestigious prize offered every four years and regarded as the Nobel Prize of Mathematics) by the International Mathematical Union, but Perelman rejected the prize. One of his initial statements was, “… if the proof is correct, then no other recognition is needed.”

In August 2006, the Union, went ahead to award him the prize, but he refused to attend and refused to accept it. “I'm not interested in money or fame,” he was quoted as saying, “I don't want to be on display like an animal in a zoo.”

In 2010 also, Dr. Perelman, a 47-year-old unemployed bachelor who is still living with his aged mother, again rejected a $1 million US dollar prize by the Clay Mathematical Institute.
One of his reasons was that his contribution to proving the Poincaré conjecture was no greater than that of Richard Hamilton, who introduced the theory of Ricci flow. For him, it was unfair of Clay Institute, for not sharing the prize with Richard Hamilton.

Perelman had previously turned down a prestigious prize from the European Mathematical Society allegedly saying that he felt the prize committee was unqualified to assess his work, even positively. He also reportedly rejected jobs at Princeton and Stanford Universities, and accused some in the mathematical community of being unethical.

Some of his close associates reported that he has since resigned from solving mathematics, possibly to avoid publicity and attention.
Now with these characteristic behaviours of Perelman, analysts believed that, although undiagnosed, he is suffering from Asperger’s Syndrome (a mild form of autism).

 Prof Gabriel Oyibo

Another is the Nigerian born mathematical genius, Prof. Gabriel Oyibo, who is considered as one of the world’s greatest thinkers. Oyibo, a former professor of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and currently a professor of Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences at the OFAPPIT Institute of Technology, Dix Hills, New York, recently claimed to have solved the Unified Field Theorem popularly known as the Theory of Everything.

It will be recalled that the Unified Field Theory which is the holy grail of physics was the theory that Albert Einstein, the world’s greatest scientist, searched for unsuccessfully in his life time.

Oyibo’s work on the Theory is the most controversial discovery in the world today. Known as GAGUT, God Almighty Grand Unified Theorem, the theorem sums up the whole of creation: how the world and the universe came into existence, into one simple but indisputable mathematical equation, Gij, j=0.

He proved that GAGUT answers the most fundamental question for humanity which is: What is God or what is the Universe? By saying that God represented by Gij is an entity that remains unchangeable which can mathematically be written as: Gij, j = 0.

Prof Oyibo believed that with his mathematical formula, incurable diseases such as AIDS, Cancer, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, can be cured. He also believed that the world's terrorism such as Al-Quaeda, Taliban, Boko Haram, and hungers in Africa can be eradicated using his formula.

Interestingly, he also claimed that God elected Barack Obama first Black American President through his mathematical formula GAGUT.

Although he has not being really diagnosed of any mental illness, some of his critics believed that from his claims it was apparent he was suffering some form of mental disorder.

Unfortunately Oyibo believed the western powers deliberately ignored his milestone discovery because he was a black man. He specifically claimed that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has clandestinely used people to debunked the claims, but maintaining that no one has been able to mathematically prove it wrong.

Reports have it that Oyibo is currently in a pitiable condition in United States, but this cannot be independently verified.

Dr. Vashishth Narayan Singh

Of all these mathematicians the worst hit seems to be the Indian born mathematician, Vashishth Narayan Singhwho, who is one of the greatest mathematician alive. He graduated from the University of California in Berkley, and obtained a PhD in Matematics from the same university in 1969. Thereafter he worked briefly in NASA as an Associate Scientist Professor before returning to India in 1972.

He worked as a mathematics lecturer and researcher in various Indian institutes such as the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Bombay and Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata.

Unfortunately, in 1977, at the peak of his career, he developed signs of a mental illness, and was diagnosed of Schizophrenia, and consequently admitted to a mental hospital in Ranchi, Bihar, India. For over 11 years he was under treatment; at a point he left home without informing anyone, and was not seen for over four years. He was later found in Siwan, Biha, India, living in a poor condition.

Vashishth Narayan Singh currently lives in complete anonymity with none to care for him.

For me, I think the government should look into the medical welfare of mathematicians....What do you think? Your suggestions will be appreciated. More contributions is needed from readers on this topic for more discuss and enlightenment. Thank you.