Talk:A Beautiful Mind

Good article nomination successful

Congratulations, this article meets all of the GA criteria. My only suggestion is that, if you wish to improve the article further, then the lead could be expanded and a few more references added. I wish you all the best with your editing... -- Johnfos 05:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

GA Sweeps

This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. The article history has been updated to reflect this review. Lampman (talk) 16:20, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Dead link

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

• http://www.oscars.org/74academyawards/nomswins.html
  • In Do Not Go Gentle on 2011-03-17 12:34:51, 404 Not Found
  • In Fate as a Rat on 2011-03-18 15:27:47, 404 Not Found
  • In Fate as a Rat on 2011-03-19 04:00:22, 404 Not Found
  • In A Beautiful Mind (film) on 2011-06-20 01:14:42, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 01:15, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Wheeler-Lab/Lincon-Lab

While there is no such thing as Wheeler-lab there is Lincon-Lab at M.I.T. which focuses only on defence related stuff, and is thus very clearly the inspiration for "Wheeler.Lab". So maybe this should be mentioned in the article- where it curently lastes that there is no such thing as Wheeler-Lab. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.82.74.50 (talk) 09:02, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Game-playing

I removed the following paragraph from the historical divergence section, because it is unclear, and the sources need to be clarified. Does anyone have any idea what this is about? ---RepublicanJacobite_TheFortyFive 16:21, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

During graduate school, it appears in the movie that Nash was averse to game playing, when, in fact, according to Nasar's biography, he spent many hours playing games and even created a new game called "John" or "Nash" (Hex). The game was somewhat similar to Go, but the shape of the squares became hexagons. The game, somewhat in conflict with the movie's mathematical point, was not one in which "nobody wins," but was "a zero-sum two-person game with perfect information in which one player always has a winning strategy" (p. 77). Though this game was not shown in the film's theatrical cut, a deleted scene shows Nash inventing the game and showing it off to his friends at Princeton.

Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games column in Scientific American (later collected in book form) covered the invention of Hex by Nash in some detail. It is not very similar to GO, it is a game in which each side attempts to create a connected path form one side of the board to another. One player tries to go from right to left (or east to west), and the other from top to bottom (or north to south). The playing spaces are hexagons rather than squares. One player must win, and indeed it can easily be proven that the first player has a winning strategy, although no one knows what it is (or didn't when I last read up on this, perhaps it has been found). The game was originally called "Nash" or "John", the latter a pun because the hexagonal tiles in the public restrooms at Princeton (and many other places) suggest the playing board for Hex (as it was later known). I don't have sources at hand for this, but it can easily be sourced. Nash was by several accounts an avid player of games. DES ^(talk) 17:57, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Proposed merge with A Beautiful Mind (soundtrack)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

No consensus to merge Orlady (talk) 04:20, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

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This soundtrack may be notable by awards and critical reaction. However, the soundtrack article is small enough to fit into the film article without repetition. Shall we use WP:N and WP:NMUSIC to object or be in favor of the merger? Not all "notable" subtopics guarantee a stand-alone article. The soundtrack is part of the film, and I'm unsure why it should be treated as independent from the film. George Ho (talk) 01:42, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

The article of the film soundtrack, A Beautiful Mind, was expanded into what it is right now. Per WP:N, even when notable, the subtopic may not guarantee a stand-alone article. As the article currently stands, is it mergeable to the film article? --George Ho (talk) 19:18, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose merge I stumbled upon the film score article by accident and expanded it from its previous awful stub-y state. George already knows my opinion on this, but for anyone else reading: while I did not create this article, I believe that there is enough secondary coverage out there to make it a notable topic (major awards, critical reception, etc). And while the parent article is not completed, I think it's long enough to render a pure merge difficult. And if this were merged, what would stop other film score articles (most of which are less notable) from being merged into their parent articles? I'd be interested to hear other opinions. Thanks, Ruby 2010/2013 22:32, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose merge. I don't see any substantial reason for the merge. This soundtrack's notability is now clear, and in light of the huge number of other albums at Category:Film soundtracks that (correctly) have their own articles, I don't think that customary style or other considerations would militate in favor of a merger. --Arxiloxos (talk) 04:09, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose merge there's simply no reason to. theonesean 00:32, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Not recipient of any Nobel Prize

Nash did not win any Nobel Prize!! it is really annoying how often this wrong information is mentioned in this article. Nash won the Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics, that has been created by the Swedish Bank Sverige Riksbank and is awarded together with the Nobel Prizes. It is however not recognised as a Nobel prize, and btw heavily criticised for misusing Nobels Name. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.162.213.235 (talk) 09:23, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

An interesting Wikipedia page is Nobel_Prize_controversies -- Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 22:00, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Alan Turing house

Is the English-version forbidden is to say that the Alan Turing house is a bit 'lived down'? Watch the actor blondie in the film walking in the barn ! 79.234.234.6 (talk) 21:12, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Anti-semitism

While the film's basis is Sylvia Nasar's biography, it does not mention Nash's hallucinations as being antisemitic - as they were - instead substitute it for anti-communistic views. Generally, any mention of criticism on this movie, e.g. that it shows Nash in all too good light and omits any negative facts from his life, falls short. In pages in other languages, the film is reviewed with a lot less bias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.162.213.235 (talk) 09:36, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Who's to say? The article here read fine to me. -- Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 21:49, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Orphaned references in A Beautiful Mind (film)

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of A Beautiful Mind (film)'s orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "imdb":

• From The Last Emperor: The Last Emperor IMDb. Retrieved on 22 July 2010
• From Portia de Rossi: A Beautiful Mind at IMDb
• From Richard Attenborough: A Beautiful Mind at IMDb
• From Keanu Reeves: A Beautiful Mind at IMDb
• From List of The Daily Show episodes (2002): "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (TV Series 1996- ) - Episodes - IMDB". imdb.
• From Going My Way: Going My Way
• From Kevin Costner: "The Big Chill (1983)". IMDb.
• From Midnight Cowboy: "IMDB.com: Awards for Midnight Cowboy". imdb.com. Retrieved 2010-03-07.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 21:03, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Cast list vandalized

Just noticed while reading the page. 213.89.136.235 (talk) 23:38, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 17 June 2026

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Nominator proves that A Beautiful Mind (film) is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. (closed by non-admin page mover) Fortek67 (talk) 13:53, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

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• A Beautiful Mind (film) → A Beautiful Mind
• A Beautiful Mind → A Beautiful Mind (disambiguation)

– The film is the primary topic. It gets over 92% of pageviews between all topics titled "A Beautiful Mind" combined, and over 80% of clickthroughs out of the disambiguation page. It is "highly likely—much more likely than any other single topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought" for the term "A Beautiful Mind". It's also the primary topic by long-term significance, as it was critically acclaimed and won a bunch of Oscars including Best Picture. Nothing else on the dab page is as significant. I want to note, again, that "being the original source of the name is not determinative". Numerous film adaptations are primary topics over the books they're adapted from, including The Godfather, Killers of the Flower Moon, The Descendants, The Exorcist, and Forrest Gump, among many others. Ladtrack (talk) 21:52, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

• Support per nom. An overwhelming WP:primary topic. - Station1 (talk) 05:43, 18 June 2026 (UTC)
• Support per nom and Station1. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:48, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

• Support per nom. The pageviews, WikiNav stats, and Oscars let the film meet both criteria, making it a very clear primary topic. 1isall (talk | contribs) 13:59, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose This is an adaptation of a well-known, prize-winning bestselling book. The film may be popular, and I presume there will be a lot of movie-going people will be looking it up. That just says more people watch movies than read. Or care more about Oscars than National Book awards or Pulitzers. Is any book made into a movie going to be automatically relegated now? Walrasiad (talk) 10:11, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

  According to WP:DPT, "being the original source of a name is not determinative". Just because one work is an adaptation of another does not automatically disqualify it from being a primary topic. 1isall (talk | contribs) 11:03, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

  There is an often implicit assumption to give very significant books the presumed primary topic even when there is a very popular or notable film adaptation. See Frankenstein, The Grapes of Wrath, or To Kill a Mockingbird for examples of this. There isn't really any basis for this but it's an understandable notion. But the book A Beautiful Mind, aside from not being as significant as these novels, is legitimately outstripped by its film adaptation. If it had won the Pulitzer, that might have put it on par, but it didn't, and the film did win Best Picture. And while films are generally more popular than books, that is especially true in this case, as the book isn't widely-read. The pageview ratio here is twenty-to-one, which is just enormous, even compared to other books with very popular film adaptations. A hatnote should be just fine to guide people looking for the book. Ladtrack (talk) 16:12, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

It's not a novel, it's a non-fiction book. And on usual shortlists of the best biographies written in the 20th Century. Sure, it's not as popular to the general public. But movies are always more popular than anything else. But this is an encyclopedia, not a movie review site or pop culture blog. Walrasiad (talk) 19:32, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

FWIW Out of Africa (film) won more Oscars, but the biography is the primary topic here. Walrasiad (talk) 19:52, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Out of Africa has a film:book pageview ratio of less than 5:1, which is still pretty high but not even close to this case. I know that movies are generally more popular but in this case much more so than normal. If you want more examples, The Fellowship of the Ring is at 4:1, All the President's Men is about 13:2, and even Twelve Years a Slave and The Last King of Scotland are about 7:1 with their film adaptations. A Beautiful Mind is legitimately an outlier here, a twenty-to-one ratio is huge. Ladtrack (talk) 00:05, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

Those movies are also quite older. Which only goes to reinforce that long-term significance of the movie will decline, and the ratio will likely diminish. But I am not proposing to make the book the primary topic like "Out of Africa", but to say no primary topic and leave the disambiguation page.

The numbers don't impress me. It is no great discovery to learn that a lot more people watch movies than read books. That's a commonplace observation. And that's all those numbers are revealing. Walrasiad (talk) 05:38, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

What? Twelve Years a Slave came out in 2013, The Last King of Scotland came out in 2006, and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring came out in 2001, as opposed to A Beautiful Mind, also 2001. All the President's Men is older but the other three are contemporary or newer movies. You're expecting a twenty-five year old movie to drop in pageviews by over half? Is this prediction measured in centuries? Ladtrack (talk) 05:46, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't know those movies. I was commenting mainly on "Out of Africa" film, which was very popular and award-laden in its time, but has diminished considerably since. But again, I am not proposing the book as primary topic like "Out of Africa", just not relegating it because "people like movies". The book is not some minor treatment or disposable summer beach novel of little significance. It has an award-winning existence of its own, which holds up well in notability of great biographies written. Do people like movies? Yes they do, heaps more. But movies also fade. In terms of long-term significance, I am not so certain, and I expect the ratio to decline. Walrasiad (talk) 06:11, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

You should watch them if you ever get a chance, they're all great movies :) Ladtrack (talk) 06:50, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

• Support, the film is more popular and well-known than the book.--Ortizesp (talk) 18:25, 19 June 2026 (UTC)
• Oppose. Why should a derivative work be the primary topic of the original with the same name? The fact that movies are more popular than books doesn't matter. This would likely happen for almost any prizewinning book that was made into a movie. What is most likely to have historical significance? As an analogy, I recall a past discussion in which an article about a pop-culture topic that happened to be the same as a geological formation was proposed to be the primary topic because the pop-culture name got more page views, but the proposal failed because we also should consider what is likely to have lasting significance; the name for the rock formation existed for centuries and would continue existing long after the pop-culture topic disappeared from human memory. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 07:11, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

  Why should a derivative work be the primary topic of the original with the same name? Why shouldn't it be, if it's more important? On what basis did you determine that the book is more likely to have historical significance? I'm not kidding, please provide an actual reason, just "the book came first" or "the movie is based on the book" have no basis in the primary topic guideline. We're not talking about the Grand Canyon here, it's a twenty-five year old film and a twenty-eight year old book. Ladtrack (talk) 17:03, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

  I am not saying one way or the other. I am just saying that I have seen no valid reason to overturn the current status quo. On what basis does one determine that the movie is more important? "It has more pageviews" has no basis in a guideline either on its own, according to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, which says we cannot consider only page views or popularity, but also long-term significance. That point is often ignored in these renaming discussions. The question about what is likely to have the lasting significance is one that we should be debating here, not page views. I don't have an answer, but I also don't see the guideline being fully addressed. Therefore I stand by my opposition to overturn the current state. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 19:26, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

  Well, the long-term significance argument for the film is that it was critically acclaimed, winning four Oscars including Best Picture among many many other awards. It is still very well-remembered a quarter of a century later, and is at this point unlikely to drop meaningfully in significance for at least several decades to come. The book's accolades are at best comparable, and probably less, considering it didn't win the Pulitzer. Between this and the pageviews, the film has a pretty good primary topic claim. Ladtrack (talk) 22:37, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

• Support Quintessential primary topic. I’ve read the opposing arguments. They’re not policy based. Attempts to claim long-term significance for the book over the Best Picture film fall flat. —В²C ☎ 07:38, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.