'Beautiful Mind' mathematician John Nash killed in crash

Picture Courtesy: Reuters

John Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economics and the man who inspired the 2001 Oscar-winning American biographical drama ‘A Beautiful Mind’ passed away in a taxi crash in New Jersey. Nash (86) was accompanied by his wife Alicia (82) who, too, died in this crash.

The two were thrown from their vehicle, according to the reports, which further state that the couple may not have been wearing seatbelts when they crashed. The couple were ejected from the vehicle, but were pronounced dead on the scene. Their taxi driver, and a passenger in another car, were also injured.

Nash was known for his work in game theory, and his personal struggle with paranoid schizophrenia. Alicia Nash, an MIT physics major and his wife has been credited with saving his life after schizophrenia derailed his career in the 1960s. She let him into her home and started looking after him even after they divorced in 1963.

The Nash Equilibrium, for which he won a Nobel Prize offers the ability to analyse situations of conflict and co-operation and produce predictions about how people will behave. His equilibrium has found application in fields as diverse as computing, evolutionary biology and artificial intelligence.