悲痛
John Nash, 86, inspiration for the film 'A Beautiful Mind,' and wife die in car accident on New Jersey Turnpike: police
BY JOEL LANDAU NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Sunday, May 24, 2015, 9:26 AM A A A
549
216
4
SHARE THIS URL
Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Forbes Nash and his wife Alicia at the 74th annual Academy Awards in 2002. The couple died in a car accident on the New Jersey Turnpike Saturday.
FRED PROUSER/REUTERS
Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Forbes Nash and his wife Alicia at the 74th annual Academy Awards in 2002. The couple died in a car accident on the New Jersey Turnpike Saturday.
Famed mathematician John Nash, whose accomplished life inspired the movie "A Beautiful Mind," was killed in a crash on the New Jersey Turnpike.
Nash, 86, and his wife Alicia, 82, of Princeton were traveling in a taxi cab on the New Jersey Turnpike southbound near mile marker 72.4 in Monroe Township at 4:30 p.m. Saturday when they died after the vehicle got into an accident, Sgt. 1st Class Gregory Williams told the Daily News.
The driver of the Ford Crown Victoria tried to pass a Chrysler when it lost control for unknown reasons and struck the guardrail, he said. The Chrysler then hit the car transporting the man who is noted for his work on game theory and shared the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
The couple was ejected from the vehicle and died at the scene, Williams said.
The accident is still under investigation and no summonses have been issued, he said.
Alicia helped Nash with his battle with schizophrenia that plagued him most of his life.
PreviousNextAlicia helped Nash with his battle with schizophrenia that plagued him most of his life. This undated family photo shows mathematician John Nash (2nd from the left) and his wife Alicia Nash (3rd from the right). Exported.; Enlarge
SONIA MOSKOWITZ/GETTY IMAGES
Alicia helped Nash with his battle with schizophrenia that plagued him most of his life.
Williams said it is trying to be determined if the Nashes were wearing their seatbelts.
The male taxi driver had to be extracted from the vehicle and was transported to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, Williams said. A female passenger in the Chrysler complained of pain and was taken to the University Medical Center of Princeton in Plainsboro Township, he said.
Nash was portrayed in the 2001 film by actor Russell Crowe. The Oscar-winning film directed by Ron Howard focused on Nash's work while studying at Princeton University and his struggle with schizophrenia that he battled with for most of his life.
A Princeton University spokesperson had no comment Sunday morning.
The film shows how his wife Alicia, played by Jennifer Connelly, helped take care of him through his illness, which compelled her to commit him to Trenton State Hospital in 1961. They married in 1957 and had a son John who is now 56 who like his father earned a Ph.D. in math and struggled with schizophrenia. His condition compelled the Nash family to become advocates for people suffering with mental health issues.
Crowe tweeted Sunday morning he was "stunned" by the news and called the couple an "amazing partnership" with beautiful minds and hearts.
But hardships led to their divorce in 1963. In 1970 she took him in again, though his illness became so bad he would wander the Princeton campus, leaving cryptic formulas on blackboards. The odd behavior earned him the nickname "The Phantom" by Princeton students, according to PBS.
But by the 1980s, the West Virginia native had begun to recover from his illness and went back to teaching. He reconciled with his wife in 2001.
On Tuesday the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters awarded the Abel Prize for 2015 to Nash and Louis Nirenberg "for striking and seminal contributions to the theory of nonlinear partial differential equations and its applications to geometric analysis."
jlandau@nydailynews.com