A Beautiful Mind Scenes 6-10 Summary

Scene 6

  • The other math students are hanging out and playing a game while John is studying birds and trying to find an algorithm for their movement.
  • Hansen is trying to challenge people to play against him. Sol remarks that he thought John had dropped out because he's never in class.
  • John agrees to play with Hansen. Hansen taunts John about his lack of achievements thus far and then wins.
  • John is not happy and storms off.

Scene 7

  • Charles comforts John, and then convinces him to go get pizza and beer with him.

Scene 8

  • John is playing pool and his "buddies" show up and start chatting with him again.
  • One of them is trying to get him to come over and talk to a girl.
  • The boys watch, amused, as John heads over to the lady. This might not go so well.
  • John and the girl sit there silently for a little bit, and it's pretty awkward.
  • The girl finally suggests to John that he buy her a drink. John responds by propositioning her, inviting her to have "fluid exchange."
  • Yup, this is not going well—the girl slaps him.

Scene 9

  • John is talking to that professor from the first scene (turns out, his name is Helinger). Helinger is not super impressed with John's progress in the program.
  • John begs for the prof to arrange a meeting with "Professor Einstein," but this guy isn't having it.
  • Apparently, you have to go to class and have proof that you're working to impress these professors.
  • Helinger then takes John to the faculty dining room, where he asks his young student to watch a professor undergoing some weird (informal) pen ceremony for a lifetime achievement.
  • The professor then breaks the bad news to John: based on his performance so far, he's not on track to get any kind of lab placement, much less his dream slot at a place called Wheeler Labs.

Scene 10

  • John is freaking out, staring at his drawings on the window, and cracks his head on the glass. Ouch.
  • Charles ends up in the middle of all this, and John starts physically fighting with him and pushing a desk toward him.
  • Charles takes the desk, with all of John's stuff on it, and pushes it out the window and into the snow below. Charles and John start cracking up.
  • We're glad they made up, but we're really thinking John is not getting his security deposit back now.