US mathematician John Nash, who inspired the
Oscar-winning film A Beautiful Mind, has died in a car crash with his wife,
police have said.
Nash, 86, and his 82-year-old wife Alicia were killed
when their taxi crashed in New Jersey, they said.
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.
Russell Crowe, who played him, tweeted: "Stunned...
My heart goes out to John & Alicia & family. An amazing partnership.
Beautiful minds, beautiful hearts."
The film's director, Ron Howard, also tweeted his tribute
to the "brilliant" John Nash and his "remarkable" wife.
Alicia Nash helped care for her husband, and the two
later became prominent mental health advocates.
The two were thrown from their vehicle, police said.
Media reports said the couple may not have been wearing seatbelts when they
crashed.
Their taxi driver, and a passenger in another car, were
also injured.
'Genius'
Born in Bluefield, West Virginia, Nash first studied in
Pittsburgh before moving to Princeton.
His recommendation letter contained just one line:
"This man is a genius."
Nash married Alicia Larde in 1957, after publishing some
of his breakthrough works in game theory, which is the mathematical study of
decision-making.
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.
The President of Princeton, Christopher Eisgruber, said
he was "stunned and saddened" to hear of their deaths.
"John's remarkable achievements inspired generations
of mathematicians, economists and scientists who were influenced by his
brilliant, groundbreaking work in game theory," he said.
Even this week, Nash received the Abel Prize, another top
honour in the field of mathematics.
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Nash Equilibrium, by John Moriarty, Manchester University
Great new mathematical ideas have a balance to strike - they must be precise enough to allow detailed conclusions to be drawn, and yet sufficiently loose that they can be useful in a wide range of problems.
The Nash Equilibrium, for which he won a Nobel Prize, is just such an idea. It offered something truly new - the ability to analyse situations of conflict and co-operation and produce predictions about how people will behave.
Nash's famous equilibrium has grown to be perhaps the most important idea in economic analysis and has found application in fields as diverse as computing, evolutionary biology and artificial intelligence.
More recently it has been used in studies of corruption and also name-checked amidst the Greek financial crisis.
Article Source/http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32865248
