US mathematician John Nash, who inspired the Oscar-
winning film A Beautiful Mind, has died in a car crash
along with his wife. Nash, 86, and his 82-year-old wife
Alicia were killed when their taxi crashed in New Jersey,
BBC reports.
Just a few days ago, Nash had received a prize from the
Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters in Oslo with
New York University mathematician Louis Nirenberg,
who said he'd chatted with the couple for an hour at the
airport in Newark before they'd gotten the cab. New
Jersey State Police say the Nashes were both ejected
from the cab in the crash around 4:30 p.m. Saturday.
They were not wearing seat belts.
The taxi driver, Tarek Girgis, was sent to hospital with
non-life-threatening injuries. A passenger in the
Chrysler was transported by ground to Princeton
University Hospital complaining of neck pain. No
charges have been filed in the accident, which is still
under investigation. The mathematician is renowned for
his work in game theory, winning the Nobel Prize for
Economics in 1994.
His breakthroughs in maths - and his struggles with
schizophrenia - were the focus of the 2001 film. Nash
married Alicia Larde in 1957, when he was a rising star
in the maths world. But he developed severe
schizophrenia soon after, and Alicia had him committed
for psychiatric care several times. The couple divorced
in 1962. "I was disturbed in this way for a very long
period of time, like 25 years," Nash said in an interview
on the Nobel website.
The two stayed close, and his condition had begun to
improve by the 1980s. They remarried in 2001. Alicia
Nash helped care for her husband, and the two later
became prominent mental health advocates.
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