Famed 'A Beautiful Mind' mathematician John Nash, wife, killed in N.J. Turnpike crash

[Cutlass]

Famed 'A Beautiful Mind' mathematician John Nash, wife, killed in N.J. Turnpike crash

MONROE — John Forbes Nash Jr., the brilliant Princeton University mathematician whose life story was the subject of the film "A Beautiful Mind," was killed with his wife Alicia on Saturday in a crash on the New Jersey Turnpike.

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

Police said the two were in a taxi traveling southbound in the left lane of the 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 near Interchange 8A in Monroe Township, according to State Police Sgt. Gregory Williams.

The couple was 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.

Nash had been in Norway on Tuesday to receive the Abel Prize for Mathematics from King Harald V for his work, along with longtime colleague Louis Nirenberg, for their work on nonlinear partial differential equations.
Why John Nash was important to the world beyond mathematics

Reached at his home Sunday, Nirenberg, who had known Nash since the 1950s, called him a "wonderful mathematician." After flying back with the couple back from Norway, he said they got into a taxi at the airport for the ride back home together.

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."

http://www.nj.com/middlesex/index.s...ian_wife_killed_in_taxi_crash_police_say.html

 

[Borachio]

That's a tragic accident.

1. They were in the back of a vehicle driven by a professional;
2. It happened in the late afternoon (not a time renowned for fatal accidents as far as I know);
3. They're in their eighties.

Unlucky, is what it is.

 

[Kyriakos]

RIP.

Maybe Ed Harris killed them

 

[CavLancer]

Lived full lives, just received further recognition. Both died together, and that is no small gift. So many people die years apart from a loved one, lingering on in grief and loneliness. Nope, not going to regret their passing one bit.

Pleasant journey to them...

 

[warpus]

However,

The couple was ejected from the car, Williams said.

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

What a beautiful mind, but in this case what an absolute dumbarse. Kids, always wear your seatbelts.

 

[Perfection]

Lived full lives, just received further recognition. Both died together, and that is no small gift. So many people die years apart from a loved one, lingering on in grief and loneliness. Nope, not going to regret their passing one bit.

There's a certainly poetry here, I agree. But Nash was an great and original thinker, someone who made great contributions to human understanding. We no longer have that beautiful mind, just the wake of his words and actions. That fact is sad, and I think it is our duty to recognize it.

In honor of John Nash, let's all try to cooperate a little more and defect a little less.

 

[Kozmos]

What a beautiful mind, but in this case what an absolute dumbarse. Kids, always wear your seatbelts.

People wear seatbelts when driving in the back?

 

[Triewd]

I don't know if Taxis have seatbelts in the back....Or even how effective they would be.

(you might depending on type of taxi be bashed against the window - I am thinking of London taxis here though)

 

[Lohrenswald]

The Abel price mentioned in the article was handed out at the university in Oslo where I study. He even held a lecture last wednesday some of my fellow students watched. I didn't hear about it, and now I'm even more dissapointed I missed it

I'm sad to see him go

 

[cybrxkhan]

My parents really liked A Beautiful Mind but I was kinda too young to appreciate it.

Anyways, rather sad to hear.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Very sad. A life well lived that also reminds us that life can end at any time. They will be missed.

 

[MjM]

It is too bad that this happened. He lived a full life however, and impacted the world in a positive way.

 

[warpus]

People wear seatbelts when driving in the back?

They were sitting in the back? Well, don't I feel like a jerk now..

But even so... yeah.. it's not such a bad idea.

Still though, I take back what I said. I thought they were in the front.

 

[CavLancer]

There's a certainly poetry here, I agree. But Nash was an great and original thinker, someone who made great contributions to human understanding. We no longer have that beautiful mind, just the wake of his words and actions. That fact is sad, and I think it is our duty to recognize it.

In honor of John Nash, let's all try to cooperate a little more and defect a little less.

Sure, I agree. Incredible intellect of a man and the wife who made him complete.

Still, its a get out of jail free card in my book. If my wife makes it into her 80s and myself into my 90s and we end this journey together in the same way, I'll be grateful.

 

[Atticus]

Why sitting back would be an excuse to not wear seat belts?

 

[Kozmos]

Why sitting back would be an excuse to not wear seat belts?

I don't know anyone who does it except small children for obvious reasons. Maybe people who sit in the center at best.

 

[Cutlass]

Why sitting back would be an excuse to not wear seat belts?

It's not so much it's an excuse as it simply common for back seat passengers to not be wearing the belts. The law only requires front seat occupants and children. It says nothing about adults in the back. Because of this, and because of old habits, people climbing into the back of a cab just frequently never consider the belts.

 

[Kyriakos]

One can as easily be killed due to crushing, if he is in the back. Eg by his head being hurled towards the back of the seat infront of him...

Anyway, surely elderly people (80?) should always wear seatbelts, and they were travelling in a taxi so they did not know their driver's kind of driving either.

 

[Borachio]

I'm having trouble understanding how anyone could be flung from a car in this way.

What kind of accident results in the car overturning, springing the doors open and flinging the occupants out onto the road?

Still, it's happened. So it must be possible.

 

[warpus]

That's why I assumed they were sitting in the front, since both of them were flung out of the car. Did not cross my mind that you could be flung out from the back like that.