NEWS

'A Beautiful Mind' mathematician John Nash, wife killed in crash

Fredreka Schouten
USA TODAY
John Nash is seen in 1994

John Nash, the Nobel Prize-winning mathematician whose life story inspired the movie A Beautiful Mind, and his wife, Alicia Nash, were killed Saturday afternoon in a car crash on the New Jersey Turnpike, New Jersey State Police said.

The Nashes were in a taxi traveling southbound in the left lane of the New Jersey Turnpike, State Police Sgt. Gregory Williams told USA TODAY, when the driver lost control while trying to pass another vehicle. The taxi crashed into the guardrail and then into another car in the right lane.

The Nashes were ejected from the taxi, and were pronounced dead at the scene, Williams said.The taxi driver was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

Nash, who shared the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1994, was 86, while Alicia Nash was 82. The couple lived in Princeton, N.J., police said, where John Nash was a senior research mathematician at Princeton University.

Princeton's president, Christopher Eisgruber, called the Nashes "very special members" of the university's community.

"John's remarkable achievements inspired generations of mathematicians, economists and scientists who were influenced by his brilliant, groundbreaking work in game theory," Eisgruber said in a statement released Sunday. "The story of his life with Alicia moved millions of readers and moviegoers who marveled at their courage in the face of daunting challenges."

The 2001 film A Beautiful Mind, starring Russell Crowe, was based loosely on his life and long battle with schizophrenia. As depicted in the film, Alicia Nash was his caregiver while he struggled with his mental illness.

In a tweet Sunday, Crowe said, "Stunned ... my heart goes out to John & Alicia & family. An amazing partnership. Beautiful minds, beautiful hearts."

Ron Howard, who directed the Oscar-winning film, called John Nash "brilliant" and Alicia Nash "remarkable" in a tweet Sunday. "It was an honor telling part of their story," he said.

John Nash, left, and his wife, Alicia, arrive at the 74th annual Academy Awards, in Los Angeles in 2002.

Nash was considered a pioneer in the field of game theory, devising a tool that economists and others could apply to competitive situations from trade negotiations to legislative battles. In 1994, he shared the Nobel Prize with two others for a theory he advanced more than four decades earlier as a young doctoral student at Princeton.

But it was his life story, chronicled first in a biography by Sylvia Nasar and in Howard's film, that brought him fame. He spent decades battling incapacitating schizophrenia, surviving with help from friends, colleagues and his wife.

The two divorced in the early 1960s, but Alicia Nash remained close to him and let him live in her home. She worked as a computer programmer to support him and their son, according to a 1994 New York Times article by Nasar. The Nashes remarried in 2001.