The Beautiful Mind is gone.
John Nash, who was introduced to the rest of the world when he and his wife became the subjects of a critically acclaimed film A Beautiful Mind, was killed in a car crash in New Jersey over the weekend. He was 86 years old.
Initial reports suggested that he, with his wife, Alice, 82, was riding a taxi when it met an accident in the turnpike. The taxi driver eventually lost control of the cab when it changed lanes, eventually hitting the guard rail and another vehicle. Due to the strong impact and the belief that the couple might have not been wearing seatbelts at the time, they were thrown out.
Besides John, Alice also succumbed to her injuries, although the taxi driver and the passenger seated in the other car were treated for non-life-threatening injuries. As of Sunday, the cab driver has not been charged.
It is believed that the couple came from the airport after they traveled to Norway where Nash received another award called Abel Prize.
Nash was very popular among the scientific community. As a mathematician, he received a 1994 Nobel Prize for his work in economic theory. He was also considered an expert or even a genius in games theory, accounting, and even artificial intelligence.
By 1959, Nash began showing signs of mental illness, primarily paranoia that worsened into schizophrenia. His behavior and mood were then described by his wife as erratic, such as believing that any man who donned on a red tie was part of the Communist Party. He also had mild depression.
For several years, he was in and out of psychiatric hospitals and were subjected to different medications and therapies. He stopped taking any form of medication and treatment more than a decade after his diagnosis.
Russell Crowe, who played him in the movie, took to Twitter to pay his tribute to Nash.
