The Nash problem from a geometric and topological perspective

We survey the proof of the Nash conjecture for surfaces and show how geometric and topological ideas developed in previous articles by the authors influenced it. Later we summarize the main ideas in the higher dimensional statement and proof by de Fernex and Docampo. We end the paper by explaining later developments on generalized Nash problem and on Koll\'ar and Nemethi's study about holomorphic arcs.