John Nash and coins.
keets
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So I'm currently multi-tasking: goofing around online, playing with the dogs, preparing a submission and watching A Beautiful Mind on the boob-tube. It ocurred to me how Mr. Nash was so brilliant yet did all his ciphering on wondows, walls, chalkboards and the occasional piece of paper, deprived of the personal cumputer along with all that the internet supplies in the way of accessible knowledge. The thought of what he could have done in todays world is frightening!!!!
Which brings me to the collectors and writers of the past, people like Breen, Sheldon, Eliasberg, Ford and others too numerous to mention. Can you imagine what those luminaries could have done and assembled with the tools we so unconciously avail ourselves with today. What if Mr. Ford could have tracked sales prices and where some items he had an interest in were at, do you think he would have snatched up everything there was to loeave nothing for other collectors?? What about the much maligned Walter Breen, would he have gotten his facts more accurately into his Encyclopedia and perhaps had less memory inspired inclusions?? Maybe Sheldon would have seen the wisdom in a pricing equation of 1-100 that fit better than the 1-70 he saddled us with?? The possibilities are endless, don't you think??
What else from the past Century, before the advent of the personal computer and the power of the internet, could have been staggeringly more than what it is?? Any thoughts?? Oh, have you seen the movie, what did you think...............................
Al H.
Which brings me to the collectors and writers of the past, people like Breen, Sheldon, Eliasberg, Ford and others too numerous to mention. Can you imagine what those luminaries could have done and assembled with the tools we so unconciously avail ourselves with today. What if Mr. Ford could have tracked sales prices and where some items he had an interest in were at, do you think he would have snatched up everything there was to loeave nothing for other collectors?? What about the much maligned Walter Breen, would he have gotten his facts more accurately into his Encyclopedia and perhaps had less memory inspired inclusions?? Maybe Sheldon would have seen the wisdom in a pricing equation of 1-100 that fit better than the 1-70 he saddled us with?? The possibilities are endless, don't you think??
What else from the past Century, before the advent of the personal computer and the power of the internet, could have been staggeringly more than what it is?? Any thoughts?? Oh, have you seen the movie, what did you think...............................
Al H.
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flipping through the channels....found A Beautiful Mind, guess I'll be watching this for a bit
John Nash was incredibly mathematically gifted - near perfection, yet the perfection led to his insanity. How does the old saying go "genius is on the edge of insanity." With respect to John Nash, this truly applied. Maybe I'm slow, but the way in which the movie went directly from Nash reality to Nash fantasy was excellent. It took me a little while to figure out that Nash wasn't being hunted by the KGB. The scene where his wife finds all the newspaper and magazine pages taped all over the walls was way over the top. It was nice to see that Nash was able to eventually lead a functioning life and overcome many of the demons that were haunting him. Especially poignant was the Princeton tradition of professors giving their pens to a colleague for whom they had the utmost respect being bestowed on Nash. As he was in his later years at this point it seemed to carry a lot significance to him.
Great movie....I would also recommend Cinderella Man. Fabulous!
Collector of Early 20th Century U.S. Coinage.
ANA Member R-3147111