American mathematician and Nobel Prize winner in economics John Nash died in a car accident in New Jersey. He was 86 years old

John Nash (Photo: REUTERS 2015)

The death of the mathematician is reported by the Huffigton Post, citing a representative of the New Jersey police. The taxi in which Nash was traveling was involved in an accident. Riding in the car with him was his wife, 82-year-old Alicia Nash, who also died. As noted by local publication NJ.com, Nash and his wife were not wearing seat belts. The driver of the car survived and was taken to hospital.

Nash won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994 "for his fundamental analysis of equilibrium in the theory of noncooperative games." Noted was Nash's dissertation on game theory, which he wrote in 1949, at the age of 21.

Nash's life story became the basis for the plot of the film A Beautiful Mind, where Russell Crowe played the role of the scientist. The film won four Oscars, including Best Picture. The actor has already announced on his Twitter that he is shocked by the death of Nash and his wife. “An amazing union. Beautiful minds, beautiful hearts,” Crowe wrote.

Nash was born in 1928 in Bluefield, West Virginia. In 1947, he entered Princeton University, by which time he already had bachelor's and master's degrees from the Carnegie Polytechnic Institute. Two years later, Nash wrote a dissertation on game theory that would be awarded the Nobel Prize in 1994.

In 1951, he went to work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the mid-1950s, he worked briefly at RAND's strategic research center. In 1957, Nash married student Alicia Lard. Soon the scientist developed symptoms of schizophrenia. In 1959, Nash lost his job at MIT, and was soon admitted to a psychiatric clinic in Boston, where he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Nash divorced his wife in 1962 (they remarried in 2001).

Over time, Nash learned to live and work in conditions of serious illness, and continued to study mathematics. In 1994, Nash did not give his Nobel lecture at Stockholm University due to the organizers' concerns about his condition.

In his work in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Nash analyzed situations in which everyone in the game either wins or loses. According to Nash theory, players in a game can, in some cases, use an optimal strategy that leads to the creation of a stable equilibrium. It is beneficial for the parties to maintain balance, since any change will worsen their position. This situation is called “Nash equilibrium.” The results of Nash's research influenced the use of mathematical tools for economic modeling. The classic concept of the competition model, based on the teachings of Adam Smith, according to which “every man for himself” was revised. According to Nash, optimal strategies are those in which everyone acts both to benefit himself and to benefit others.

Nobel laureate John Nash dies in car accident