Latest news with #JohnNash
Arab News
20-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Arab News
What We Are Reading Today: ‘A Beautiful Mind'
Author: Sylvia Nasar Sylvia Nasar's 'A Beautiful Mind' from 1998 chronicles the extraordinary life of John Nash, the mathematician who shared the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences with John Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten for groundbreaking work in game theory. Nasar explores Nash's genius, his battle with schizophrenia, and his unexpected recovery, crafting a rich portrait of one of the 20th century's most complex minds. Born in Bluefield, West Virginia, Nash's exceptional intellect distinguished him from an early age. Nasar carefully traces his academic journey, spotlighting revolutionary concepts like the Nash equilibrium, transformative for economics and strategic thought. Nasar also unflinchingly details his paranoia and delusions, and the heavy toll they took on his career and family. Most compelling is Nash's eventual recovery — a slow, medically unusual journey central to his story. Nasar's writing blends insight with precision. She weaves personal history, scientific context, and accessible explanations, making the mathematician graspable while honoring his resilience. This balance ensures value for scholars and casual readers alike. The 2001 movie starring Russell Crowe is certainly gripping and brought Nash's story to a huge audience. I remember being moved by it myself, but it takes massive creative liberties, simplifying the science and dramatizing his relationships for the screen. I would suggest reading Nasar's book by way of contrast as it feels like it uncovers the real, layered truth behind the headlines. After reading it I appreciated so much more deeply the messy, complex reality of his life as opposed to the cinematic hero arc. It is not just more accurate; it offers a richer, more profound understanding of who Nash truly was — honoring both his towering intellect and the quiet, enduring strength he and his wife Alicia showed. This elegant mathematical insight, a result of his turbulent genius, transcends economics to illuminate everything, from nuclear standoffs to everyday competition. That such a universal principle emerged amid his personal struggle with mental illness makes 'A Beautiful Mind' not just a biography, but a testament to the fragile duality of brilliance.
Time of India
18-07-2025
- Automotive
- Time of India
Smog showdown: How Delhi's over-age vehicle ban became a strategic stalemate
On the sweltering afternoon of July 1, at a bustling petrol station in Bawana, Delhi, Rajesh Kishore found himself turned away, not for lack of money, but because his decade-old diesel hatchback was suddenly outlawed from refuelling. Overnight, the capital had barred 6.2 million end-of-life vehicles: diesels over ten years and petrol cars beyond fifteen, from buying fuel, invoking a Supreme Court–mandated green push to curb deadly smog. What was intended as a decisive environmental strike quickly morphed into a textbook case of strategy gone awry. Setting the Stage: A City Chokes, and an Order Drops Delhi's air is famously dirty, rivalling the worst cities on the planet. Last year, the tiny particles in that smog (known as PM₂.₅), averaged 104 micrograms per cubic meter, which is over two and a half times higher than India's own safety limit and more than twenty times what the World Health Organization calls safe. To tackle this, officials tried to pull the oldest, smokiest vehicles off the road, hoping to cut down on harmful dust and give Delhi a few clearer, healthier days, especially in the winter. However, with barely three days' notice, implementing the ban faced unexpected challenges. Thousands of two-wheelers, taxis and trucks descended on petrol pumps equipped with Automated Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras and Transport Department officers. Only 80 vehicles were impounded on day one, hardly a drop in the 6.2 million-strong fleet, and 98 notices were handed out to drivers whose cars evaded seizure. Enter John Nash: The Man Behind Modern Strategy Nearly 75 years ago, Princeton mathematician John Nash upended economic thought with a simple insight: in any strategic interaction – from chess to trade wars – there exists a set of strategies where no player benefits by unilaterally changing their move. He called this the ' Nash equilibrium '. Legend holds that Nash sketched his idea on a cocktail napkin at a New York bar, oblivious that his theorem would one day earn a Nobel Prize and reshape fields as disparate as biology, politics, and yes, air-pollution policy. The One-Shot Deadlock: Who Moves, Who Waits In Delhi's 'ban game,' five leading actors took the field: 1. The Government is keen to deliver cleaner air while avoiding a political uproar. 2. Vehicle Owners , facing retrofit or scrappage costs: electric conversion kits run between ₹300,000 and ₹600,000, or fines for non-compliance. 3. Fuel Dealers are caught between lost sales and punitive penalties. 4. Enforcement teams were hamstrung by malfunctioning cameras and patchy data. 5. The Judiciary is ready to freeze or uphold the ban via legal review. In a one-shot game , each actor chooses once and hopes for the best. Owners calculate: scrape or retrofit at massive expense, or risk defection? Dealers weigh halting business against ticketing customers. Regulators decide whether to enforce fully or rescind in the face of chaos. When the cost of compliance eclipses perceived benefits, defection becomes the rational strategy, and regulators, seeing low seizure counts, swiftly hit 'pause.' The resulting Nash equilibrium , viz., no enforcement, widespread non-compliance, left Delhi's roads just as smoggy, and every stakeholder nursing bruised payoffs. The Fallout: Markets, Moods and Missed Opportunities The ban's fallout was almost immediate and brutal. Within days, the used-car market went into freefall – buyers, spooked by the threat of impoundment, drove prices down by 40 to 50 percent, leaving dealers from Delhi to Punjab scrambling just to break even. At the same time, a LocalCircles ( ) poll of more than 17,000 Delhi drivers revealed that 79 percent felt the measure was unfairly targeted, especially two-wheeler riders, who account for about 70 percent of the vehicles caught in the crackdown. Meanwhile, petrol-station owners warned that their livelihoods were at risk, citing plunging sales and the steep cost of installing and maintaining ANPR cameras. Daily-wage drivers, too, worried that sidelined vehicles would leave them without income. By the third day, the pressure had become too much: By July 4, the government suspended all impoundments, formally asked the Commission for Air Quality Management to halt enforcement, and pledged a three-month review to craft a new policy roadmap. Chief Minister Rekha Gupta even signalled a Supreme Court challenge seeking uniform, emissions-based rules nationwide – an acknowledgment that age-based cut-offs had sown more confusion than clarity. The Latest Twist: Interim Relief and Roadmap Just two days in, Delhi's fledgling ban hit a wall. On July 3, Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa quietly urged the air-quality watchdog to hit pause, blaming faulty ANPR cameras and tangled coordination, even though, on paper, diesel cars over ten years old and petrol vehicles beyond fifteen were still barred at every pump. In practice, most stations simply stopped seizing cars, and drivers rolled up, paid, and filled up as if nothing had changed. By July 5, Lieutenant Governor V.K. Saxena weighed in, warning that West Delhi should not outlaw vehicles that a neighbour, like Ghaziabad, still allows. A few days later, Chief Minister Rekha Gupta confirmed Delhi would ask the Supreme Court for a uniform, emissions-based standard nationwide, a tacit admission that the abrupt age cutoff had produced nothing but stalemate. Despite the Commission for Air Quality Management's phased rollout (July 1 in Delhi; November in five dense NCR cities; and April 1, 2026, everywhere else) on the streets the game is unchanged: no real enforcement, no real compliance, and a deadlock that shows how vital it is to line up everyone's incentives before rolling out even the boldest green policy. From Deadlock to Dialogue: Crafting a Cooperative Playbook Imagine trying to steer a crowded bus where everyone insists on sitting in their favourite seat – you will eventually end up with a jumbled mess unless you reshape the whole system so that the ' right ' choice feels natural. That's what mechanism design does: it rewrites the rules so that when each person follows their own interests, the city, as a whole, wins. In Delhi's case, picture this: instead of forcing drivers to bear hefty retrofitting costs alone, the government hands out a generous rebate the moment you retire or upgrade your old car. Suddenly, trading in that smoky hatchback doesn't sting your wallet – it feels like a fair bargain for cleaner streets. Next, imagine the ban rolled out like a season of your favourite show, with clear release dates, regular progress updates and well-trained pump attendants ready to scan plates without confusion. People stop scrambling and start planning, turning anxiety into cooperation. And rather than guessing who pollutes based on age, inspectors simply run a quick tailpipe test. If your car meets the standard, you are good to go – no matter if it is five or fifteen years old. This smart swap rewards genuinely cleaner vehicles and snags the real offenders, old or new. Finally, treat this as a long-term partnership rather than a one-day decree: top up subsidies on schedule, keep enforcement steady, and make it plain that any backtracking means those perks vanish. Over time, drivers and dealers learn that sticking to the new rules is not just a hassle; it is the easiest, smartest way to keep Delhi's air, and their own futures, clear. A Breath of Fresh Strategy Delhi's over-age vehicle ban was a bold first move. However, announcing the ban in the strategic policy dance opens the conversation. The real challenge lies in designing rules where every actor, viz., the Government, drivers, dealers, and courts, finds cooperation more rewarding than defection. By weaving Nash's insights into smart incentives, phased signals and fitness-based standards, Delhi can transform a one-off skirmish into a sustained advance against smog. Only then will the city's lungs and people truly breathe easier.
Express Tribune
06-07-2025
- Politics
- Express Tribune
Students of tomorrow — a teacher's thoughts
Having taught sociology for fourteen years at the high school level in Pakistan, I have found many of my students to be lacking in three areas in particular; originality of thought, lack of analytical output in the class and indifference to the value of the social sciences. The three problems identified above are not only restricted to the private sector of primary and high school education in Pakistan but are more acute in the country's public schools and colleges. Our students need to be inspired by teachers themselves to come up with original ideas and innovative thoughts. While having classroom discussions with them on a variety of issues from rising divorce rates in Pakistani society to the qualitative input which might be of use in designing a research outlay for a school project, I have found many of them to be restricted in their thinking and consequently, in their effort put into the particular task. This can be due to, amongst other factors, the years of social conditioning by both their families and households and the society that they witness. To counter this, a teacher must know that students in the vital age group of 10-16 must not be held back in their creative and valuable contributions to class discussions. The administrative hierarchy of educational administrators should realise this too. At the same time, students must realise that it is important to not only be novel in the presentation of an idea to the class but that it should also be analytically worthy of thoughtful reflection. For that, they will have to forget stereotypical images, centred on class, gender, racial and ethnic divisions and preconceived (and untrue) notions of what it means to be a human in relationship to the society around us in the modern/postmodern world of today. This is the task that teachers of today need to be well aware of, if they want to guide the original minds of tomorrow. Beautiful minds such as Stephen Hawkings, John Nash and Sayyed Hossein Nasr of today and Leo Tolstoy, Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Rabindranath Tagore of yesteryears need to be taken on board to build a 'collective conscience' for the world of tomorrow. Poets such as Hu Shi, Yosano Akiko, Goethe, Wordsworth and Iqbal must be read and reread if we are to succeed in this huge task in front of us. Shakespeare must be contextualised in the Pakistani society around us if the country's students of today are to build bridges of understanding and humanity with the world of tomorrow. In this world, knowledge should not have a 'price tag' and it must be imparted for the intrinsic good it entails. They should be made to understand how curiosity, guided in the right direction, leads to an inquisitive mindset, which knows no boundaries at all, when it comes to reaching the frontiers of information. This yearning for knowledge must be nurtured and respected both within and outside the country's classrooms. Lastly, the need for us to understand the value of social sciences and social scientists for today's Pakistan. Social sciences need to be emphasised as very important if the Pakistani state and its future (the students of today) are to take head-on the challenges that afflict the nation and the obscure mindset of its citizens today. Social sciences such as economics, sociology and liberal arts subjects such as historiography have built nations. Unfortunately, Pakistani academia has yet to realise the full potential of an education in social sciences. Our students need to be liberated from the conventional paradigm of a sciences-commerce duality and need to be made to understand the primacy of social sciences in today's world. As AI transforms the education sector today, social sciences offer a huge insider view of the changes that will be wrought on the education sector both within and outside the classroom. It offers us a window into the view that society will be massively impacted by the new information age and in order to succeed in this information age, students will have to decouple themselves from conventional ideas of classroom education. Social sciences are bound to offer careers of tomorrow ranging from research, academia and the changing face of government and public policy. And the human will stand at the primal chord of these massive societal fissures. Appropriate would it be that Pakistani students recognise the potential of this huge transformation. Lastly, ethics will be a fundamental part of this new scope of education. Pakistani parents, teachers and the students themselves should be made to remember this valuable lesson. It means that education and the process of imparting it in Pakistan must have an ethical angle too. Ethics and morality do play an important part in all didactic goals and this aspect of education can no longer be ignored, especially in the age of AI. If it is considered, then education should be imparted in a value-free way (perfection over here cannot be reached) since all positive philosophy, interactionist experiments and laboratory products need to be associated with the 'Ultimate Good', that is, the pursuit of education for its intrinsic worth. Ethics and morality infused with humanism will go a long way to answer the gripping questions that are bound to emerge in the society of tomorrow. In this discourse, education cannot be constrained from ethics and a humanistic pedagogy. For instance, taking just one cue of the question of what knowledge is, in the future will involve a lot of ethical dilemmas and queries. There needs to be given a global perspective to education in Pakistan today. If it is not granted, then historiography will remain scribe versions of actual history, geography will continue to ignore significant monuments of interest to the geologist of the future and the social sciences will miss out on the things that need to be 'taught' in a classroom environment. The coming world of education will ask us fundamental questions of what knowledge is, how should it be pursued and what it means to be a knowledgeable human. AI will transform the education sector and the world beyond education to a huge degree. In this sense, our students need to be made aware of the challenges of tomorrow and the innovative and engaging ways to overcome them. It is an age of knowledge. And knowledge will remain powerful in this age. Taimur Arbab is a teacher of Sociology and a writer based in Karachi All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the author
Time Out
04-07-2025
- Business
- Time Out
Even more of London's West End could soon be pedestrianised, with new plans for Piccadilly Circus
Londoners rejoiced last month when the highly anticipated, and sometimes contentious, Oxford Street pedestrianisation project took a major step forward. Following a public consultation, London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced that there was 'overwhelming public and business support' for the initiative, and that his office would be 'moving ahead as quickly as possible'. Now, another section of the West End could see vehicles banned completely. Proposals have been put forward to pedestrianise Regent Street St James's – the road to the south of Piccadilly Circus that runs between Piccadilly and St James's Park – and to make the on-foot area of Piccadilly Circus bigger. The scheme by Westminster City Council and The Crown Estate could also see improved cycle lanes on Regent Street and the introduction of two-way traffic on Haymarket. It also wants to see the 'greening' of Regent Street, with better pedestrian crossings and the removal of the island running down the centre of the road. While traffic-free streets might seem like a modern idea, in fact this proposal reimagines a plan put forward by John Nash 200 years ago, Westminster Council said. Geoff Barraclough, cabinet member for planning and economic development at Westminster City Council, said the plans would create 'a new network of public spaces'. He added: 'This is a rare opportunity to reimagine the heart of the West End as a greener, more welcoming and accessible place that works better for residents, visitors and local businesses alike.' Naysayers, you can hold your horses (or cars) for now. We won't know the outcome of the future of this scheme, including how it will be funded, until it is decided by the Crown Estate in 2026.
CNET
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CNET
Today's NYT Mini Crossword Answers for June 19
Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today's Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles. Need some help with today's Mini Crossword? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips. The Mini Crossword is just one of many games in the Times' games collection. If you're looking for today's Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET's NYT puzzle hints page. Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword Let's get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers. The completed NYT Mini Crossword puzzle for June 19, 2025. NYT/Screenshot by CNET Mini across clues and answers 1A clue: Electronics upgrade for the living room Answer: NEWTV 6A clue: Sneeze sound Answer: ACHOO 7A clue: Common merch offering Answer: SHIRT 8A clue: Journalism is a noted one in 2025 Answer: HORSE 9A clue: The "L" of L.A. Answer: LOS Mini down clues and answers 1D clue: Mathematician John for whom an equilibrium is named Answer: NASH 2D clue: Word shouted into a canyon Answer: ECHO 3D clue: Spin round and round Answer: WHIRL 4D clue: Midsection of the body Answer: TORSO 5D clue: Decides (on) democratically Answer: VOTES
