Mathematician John Nash and Wife Killed in NJ Car Crash

[Eternal_Freedom]

Source

John Forbes Nash Jr., the brilliant Princeton University mathematician whose life story was the subject of the film "A Beautiful Mind," and his wife of nearly 60 years were killed in a crash Saturday on the New Jersey Turnpike, police said.

Nash was 86. Alicia Nash was 82. The couple lived in Princeton Junction.

The two were in a taxi traveling southbound in the left lane of the New Jersey Turnpike when the driver of the Ford Crown Victoria lost control as he tried to pass a Chrysler in the center lane, crashing into a guard rail, according to State Police Sgt. Gregory Williams.

The Nashes were both ejected from the car, Williams said.

"It doesn't appear that they were wearing seatbelts," he said.

The second vehicle also crashed into the guard rail, Williams said. The taxi driver was extricated from the vehicle and flown to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick with non-life-threatening injuries. He was identified as Tark Girgis, 46, of Elizabeth. A passenger in the Chrysler was treated for neck pain.

The crash was reported at 4:30 p.m. The couple were pronounced dead at the scene at 5:18 p.m., said authorities.

A spokesman for the Middlesex County Prosecutor's office said no charges were expected to be filed in the case.
A Beautiful Mind

Nash, a West Virginia Native, shared a Nobel Prize for Economics in 1994, the year before he joined the Princeton mathematics department as a senior research mathematician. He is known for his work in game theory and his struggle with paranoid schizophrenia, depicted in the 2001 film, "A Beautiful Mind," starring Russell Crowe.

In a Tweet, Crowe today said he was stunned. "My heart goes out to John &Alicia & family," he wrote. "An amazing partnership. Beautiful minds, beautiful hearts."



Alicia was his caretaker while he battled his mental illness. They became mental health care advocates when their son John was also diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Nash, born in Bluefield, W.Va., grew up in West Virginia and received his bachelor's and graduate degrees from Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University). He received his doctorate in mathematics from Princeton in 1950.

Named early in his career by Fortune magazine as one of the most promising mathematicians in the world, Nash is regarded as one of the great mathematicians of the 20th century. He set the foundations of modern game theory— the mathematics of decision-making—while still in his 20s, and his fame grew during his time at Princeton University and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he met Alicia Larde, a physics major. They married in 1957.

They were a study in contrasts. He was lanky, lean and eccentric, and often with a sly smile. Alicia, a San Salvador native who still retained an accent, was always the family anchor.

But by the end of the 1950s, the voices in his head began to overtake his thoughts on mathematical theory. In his biography, Sylvia Nasar described how Nash accused one mathematician of entering his office to steal his ideas and began to hear alien messages. She noted that when Nash was offered a prestigious chair at the University of Chicago, he declined because he was planning to become Emperor of Antarctica.

Alicia had him involuntarily committed several times, including twice in New Jersey, at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and Carrier Clinic, creating such a rift in their relationship that they divorced in 1962.

Nash, despite his illness, continued to teach and took research jobs throughout the 1960s and 1970s, returning to take up his old life with his former wife and their son. Alicia, who took a job as a computer programmer for NJ Transit, continued to support both her ex-husband and their son.
Schizophrenia fades

As Nash aged, however, the schizophrenia began receding in the late 1970s and the voices in his head faded.

"I had been long enough hospitalized that I would finally renounce my delusional hypotheses and revert to thinking of myself as a human of more conventional circumstances, and return to mathematical research," Nash later wrote for the Nobel autobiography that described his recovery.

Alicia and John remarried at their home in 2001 and in recent years became major advocates for mental health care in New Jersey.

Nash was in Norway on Tuesday to receive the Abel Prize for mathematics from King Harald V for his work, along with longtime colleague Louis Nirenberg, on nonlinear partial differential equations.

Reached at his home Sunday, Nirenberg called Nash a "wonderful mathematician" and person. Nirenberg had just flown back from Norway with the couple, and they were taking a taxi back from the airport, he said. Nirenberg had known the couple since the 1950s.

At Princeton this morning, Dan Corica said he often saw Nash on campus.

"He was a recognizable presence on campus and we were always excited when we saw him having meals in the Frist Campus Center," Corica said.

Paulina Goldman, of Pennington, said she saw A Beautiful Mind a "long, long time ago."

"It's really sad," she said. "I feel sad for his family."

Brian Lipton, of New York City, called Nash's death a "horrible tragedy."

"He already had such a difficult life," he said.

The last time many at Princeton saw Nash was in late March, when the university held a celebration following the announcement that he had won the Abel Prize with Nirenberg.

Nash and his wife had attended the informal campus reception, where colleagues took turns lauding the mathematician. The prize—which came with an $800,000 prize that Nash would split with Nirenberg—was considered the pinnacle of his career.

"The Abel Prize is top-level among mathematics prizes," Nash said in his soft voice at the event, according to an account written by the university's press office. "There's really nothing better."

Though Nash was best known for his work in game theory, the Abel Prize recognized his other groundbreaking work in geometry and partial differential equations.

At the reception, Nash quietly discussed his work with fellow mathematicians and Princeton colleagues, according to those who attended. He wore a suit and an orange tie with a drawing of Princeton's Cleveland Tower, one of the university's landmarks.

"Short of getting the prize myself, there is no one the prize could go to that would make me more happy," Sergiu Klainerman, a Princeton mathematics professor, said during a series of informal speeches at the reception, according to the university's account.

"The prize has redressed a historical anomaly in the public," Klainerman said, referring to the popularity of Nash's game-theory work. "We mathematicians know very well that [Nash] did far deeper work much later. These are the works for which he is finally recognized today by the most prestigious mathematics prize."

Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber said both Nash and his wife were special members of the community.

"We are stunned and saddened by news of the untimely passing of John Nash and his wife and great champion, Alicia," said Eisgruber. John's remarkable achievements inspired generations of mathematicians, economists and scientists who were influenced by his brilliant, groundbreaking work in game theory, and the story of his life with Alicia moved millions of readers and moviegoers who marveled at their courage in the face of daunting challenges."

Very sad news.

[cmdrjones]

Source

John Forbes Nash Jr., the brilliant Princeton University mathematician whose life story was the subject of the film "A Beautiful Mind," and his wife of nearly 60 years were killed in a crash Saturday on the New Jersey Turnpike, police said.

Nash was 86. Alicia Nash was 82. The couple lived in Princeton Junction.

The two were in a taxi traveling southbound in the left lane of the New Jersey Turnpike when the driver of the Ford Crown Victoria lost control as he tried to pass a Chrysler in the center lane, crashing into a guard rail, according to State Police Sgt. Gregory Williams.

The Nashes were both ejected from the car, Williams said.

"It doesn't appear that they were wearing seatbelts," he said.

The second vehicle also crashed into the guard rail, Williams said. The taxi driver was extricated from the vehicle and flown to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick with non-life-threatening injuries. He was identified as Tark Girgis, 46, of Elizabeth. A passenger in the Chrysler was treated for neck pain.

The crash was reported at 4:30 p.m. The couple were pronounced dead at the scene at 5:18 p.m., said authorities.

A spokesman for the Middlesex County Prosecutor's office said no charges were expected to be filed in the case.
A Beautiful Mind

Nash, a West Virginia Native, shared a Nobel Prize for Economics in 1994, the year before he joined the Princeton mathematics department as a senior research mathematician. He is known for his work in game theory and his struggle with paranoid schizophrenia, depicted in the 2001 film, "A Beautiful Mind," starring Russell Crowe.

In a Tweet, Crowe today said he was stunned. "My heart goes out to John &Alicia & family," he wrote. "An amazing partnership. Beautiful minds, beautiful hearts."



Alicia was his caretaker while he battled his mental illness. They became mental health care advocates when their son John was also diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Nash, born in Bluefield, W.Va., grew up in West Virginia and received his bachelor's and graduate degrees from Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University). He received his doctorate in mathematics from Princeton in 1950.

Named early in his career by Fortune magazine as one of the most promising mathematicians in the world, Nash is regarded as one of the great mathematicians of the 20th century. He set the foundations of modern game theory— the mathematics of decision-making—while still in his 20s, and his fame grew during his time at Princeton University and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he met Alicia Larde, a physics major. They married in 1957.

They were a study in contrasts. He was lanky, lean and eccentric, and often with a sly smile. Alicia, a San Salvador native who still retained an accent, was always the family anchor.

But by the end of the 1950s, the voices in his head began to overtake his thoughts on mathematical theory. In his biography, Sylvia Nasar described how Nash accused one mathematician of entering his office to steal his ideas and began to hear alien messages. She noted that when Nash was offered a prestigious chair at the University of Chicago, he declined because he was planning to become Emperor of Antarctica.

Alicia had him involuntarily committed several times, including twice in New Jersey, at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and Carrier Clinic, creating such a rift in their relationship that they divorced in 1962.

Nash, despite his illness, continued to teach and took research jobs throughout the 1960s and 1970s, returning to take up his old life with his former wife and their son. Alicia, who took a job as a computer programmer for NJ Transit, continued to support both her ex-husband and their son.
Schizophrenia fades

As Nash aged, however, the schizophrenia began receding in the late 1970s and the voices in his head faded.

"I had been long enough hospitalized that I would finally renounce my delusional hypotheses and revert to thinking of myself as a human of more conventional circumstances, and return to mathematical research," Nash later wrote for the Nobel autobiography that described his recovery.

Alicia and John remarried at their home in 2001 and in recent years became major advocates for mental health care in New Jersey.

Nash was in Norway on Tuesday to receive the Abel Prize for mathematics from King Harald V for his work, along with longtime colleague Louis Nirenberg, on nonlinear partial differential equations.

Reached at his home Sunday, Nirenberg called Nash a "wonderful mathematician" and person. Nirenberg had just flown back from Norway with the couple, and they were taking a taxi back from the airport, he said. Nirenberg had known the couple since the 1950s.

At Princeton this morning, Dan Corica said he often saw Nash on campus.

"He was a recognizable presence on campus and we were always excited when we saw him having meals in the Frist Campus Center," Corica said.

Paulina Goldman, of Pennington, said she saw A Beautiful Mind a "long, long time ago."

"It's really sad," she said. "I feel sad for his family."

Brian Lipton, of New York City, called Nash's death a "horrible tragedy."

"He already had such a difficult life," he said.

The last time many at Princeton saw Nash was in late March, when the university held a celebration following the announcement that he had won the Abel Prize with Nirenberg.

Nash and his wife had attended the informal campus reception, where colleagues took turns lauding the mathematician. The prize—which came with an $800,000 prize that Nash would split with Nirenberg—was considered the pinnacle of his career.

"The Abel Prize is top-level among mathematics prizes," Nash said in his soft voice at the event, according to an account written by the university's press office. "There's really nothing better."

Though Nash was best known for his work in game theory, the Abel Prize recognized his other groundbreaking work in geometry and partial differential equations.

At the reception, Nash quietly discussed his work with fellow mathematicians and Princeton colleagues, according to those who attended. He wore a suit and an orange tie with a drawing of Princeton's Cleveland Tower, one of the university's landmarks.

"Short of getting the prize myself, there is no one the prize could go to that would make me more happy," Sergiu Klainerman, a Princeton mathematics professor, said during a series of informal speeches at the reception, according to the university's account.

"The prize has redressed a historical anomaly in the public," Klainerman said, referring to the popularity of Nash's game-theory work. "We mathematicians know very well that [Nash] did far deeper work much later. These are the works for which he is finally recognized today by the most prestigious mathematics prize."

Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber said both Nash and his wife were special members of the community.

"We are stunned and saddened by news of the untimely passing of John Nash and his wife and great champion, Alicia," said Eisgruber. John's remarkable achievements inspired generations of mathematicians, economists and scientists who were influenced by his brilliant, groundbreaking work in game theory, and the story of his life with Alicia moved millions of readers and moviegoers who marveled at their courage in the face of daunting challenges."

Very sad news.

O God of spirits and of all flesh, Who hast trampled down death and overthrown the Devil, and given life to Thy world, do Thou, the same Lord, give rest to the souls of Thy departed servants in a place of brightness, a place of refreshment, a place of repose, where all sickness, sighing, and sorrow have fled away. Pardon every transgression which they have committed, whether by word or deed or thought. For Thou art a good God and lovest mankind; because there is no man who lives yet does not sin, for Thou only art without sin, Thy righteousness is to all eternity, and Thy word is truth.

For Thou are the Resurrection, the Life, and the Repose of Thy servants who have fallen asleep, O Christ our God, and unto Thee we ascribe glory, together with Thy Father, who is from everlasting, and Thine all-holy, good, and life-creating Spirit, now and ever unto ages of ages. Amen.

[Raw Shark]

Kids, wear your seatbelts. Seriously. The Ford Crown Victoria is a very solid two-ton vehicle that can, and has, on my watch, take(n) some pretty serious hits, but it is not a force field that will save you from anything short of a nuclear bomb, and does very little to help you if you're bouncing around inside it like a fucking pinball. This was a totally useless waste.

[K. A. Pital]

A sad day indeed. RIP, man of the equilibrium.

[Pelranius]

Kids, wear your seatbelts. Seriously. The Ford Crown Victoria is a very solid two-ton vehicle that can, and has, on my watch, take(n) some pretty serious hits, but it is not a force field that will save you from anything short of a nuclear bomb, and does very little to help you if you're bouncing around inside it like a fucking pinball. This was a totally useless waste.

Going off on a tangent, does it seem like a lot of older people are less likely to wear seatbelts?

[Broomstick]

Kids, wear your seatbelts. Seriously. The Ford Crown Victoria is a very solid two-ton vehicle that can, and has, on my watch, take(n) some pretty serious hits, but it is not a force field that will save you from anything short of a nuclear bomb, and does very little to help you if you're bouncing around inside it like a fucking pinball. This was a totally useless waste.

Going off on a tangent, does it seem like a lot of older people are less likely to wear seatbelts?

A lot of people don't wear seatbelts in cabs, period.

As for the older people - I just barely remember when seat belts were an option for cars, you had to request them to be sure you got them. Grow up in an environment where you have cars on the road that don't even have seat belts sure, using them will be less automatic.

[Enigma]

Certain states don't even require back seat passengers to even wear seat belts. I know that is the case here in Ohio.

[Broomstick]

Indiana doesn't require people in the front seat of a pickup to wear a seatbelt.

[The Romulan Republic]

Let me guess: Some conservative nonsense about how having to wear seat belts is the government taking away your rights?

Anyway, even though Nash and his wife had a long life and great accomplishments, it is, of course, a terrible loss that they were taken from the world in this manner. Rest in Peace.

[Terralthra]

Let me guess: Some conservative nonsense about how having to wear seat belts is the government taking away your rights?

It has more to do with the same logic as allowing 14 year-olds and younger to drive. Farming something something. ::handwave::

[Broomstick]

Yes - the notion is that farmers on their own land need to be able to hop in and out of a pickup when, say, tending farms. Of course, that's slow speed work (one presumes) and in any case, who the fuck cares what you're doing on your own property? Why this should apply on a public road is beyond me.

They did try to get the law changed a couple years ago, but I think most people just don't care enough to bother. Except, of course, the ones adamantly opposed to being forced to buckle up.

[Gandalf]

Going off on a tangent, does it seem like a lot of older people are less likely to wear seatbelts?

It's a generational thing. My grandparents learned to drive and such before the seatbelt laws were introduced, and weren't very strict about it when driving us around. But now such a thing is largely unthinkable because we've had nearly two generation of widespread seatbelt legislation.

[ArmorPierce]

New Jersey don't have laws regarding back seat passengers wearing seat belts. I never see people putting on their seat belts in the back seat.

[Sea Skimmer]

Yeah actually it does. http://www.nj.gov/oag/hts/seatbelts.html

Seatbelt use is required for all passengers in New Jersey as of 2010.

[Raw Shark]

Broomstick is correct on both counts: A lot of old people don't use seatbelts* in any vehicle, and a lot of people from all walks of life don't use seatbelts in the front or back seat of cabs, period. I'm not really sure why on the latter - something about being drunk as shit combined with having a sober professional driver sets people at ease, I guess. Sometimes I'll notice a whole car load of people quietly buckling up while I'm telling one of my "funny" (ie: horrifying) wreck stories, though.

* I've even witnessed an old person buckling children in while not using their own seatbelt, suggesting that they either felt like the laws only applied to people who started riding in cars after their passage, or that they were passively-suicidal maybe.