John Forbes Nash, Jr., the famed mathematician whose life was the subject of Oscar-winning biopic A Beautiful Mind, died Saturday in a car crash in New Jersey. He was 86.
Nash’s wife, Alicia Nash, also died in the accident. She was 82. The couple, who were married for nearly 60 years, lived in New Jersey, NJ.com reported.
The Nashes were in a taxi when the crash occurred on the New Jersey Turnpike, State Police Sgt. Gregory Williams told Mashable. The cab driver lost control while trying to pass another car, and crashed into the guard rail. The couple was thrown from the vehicle, suggesting they may not have been wearing seat belts, Williams said.
A colleague, who had received an award with Nash in Norway last week, told NJ.com that the couple had just flown home and took a cab from the airport.
Born in West Virginia, John Nash was a Princeton University mathematician who won the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.
Nash became globally recognized for his research in game theory, as well as his struggle with schizophrenia after A Beautiful Mind debuted in 2001. Alicia, a physics graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was Nash’s caretaker. Both were advocates for mental healthcare, NJ.com reported. The couple divorced in 1963, then resumed living together several years later, before finally remarrying in 2001.
Several days ago, Nash had received the Abel 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 a cab. Nirenberg said Nash was a truly great mathematician and “a kind of genius.”
“We were all so happy together,” Nirenberg said. “It seemed like a dream.”