Nobel winner John Nash, wife die in NJ crash

Associated Press

TRENTON, N.J.

John Forbes Nash Jr., a mathematical genius whose struggle with schizophrenia was chronicled in the 2001 movie “A Beautiful Mind,” has died along with his wife in a car crash on the New Jersey Turnpike. He was 86.

Nash and Alicia Nash, 82, of Princeton Township, were killed in a taxi crash Saturday, state police said. A colleague who had received an award with Nash in Norway earlier in the week said they had just flown home and the couple had taken a cab home from the airport.

Russell Crowe, who portrayed Nash in “A Beautiful Mind,” tweeted that he was “stunned.”

“An amazing partnership,” he wrote. “Beautiful minds, beautiful hearts.”

In a statement Sunday, his co-star in the film, Jennifer Connelly, called the couple “an inspiration,” and the film’s director, Ron Howard, tweeted that “it was an honor telling part of their story.”

Known as brilliant and eccentric, Nash was associated with Princeton University for many years, most recently serving as a senior research mathematician.

He won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1994 for his work in game theory, which offered insight into the dynamics of human rivalry. It is considered one of the most-influential ideas of the 20th century.