John Forbes Nash Jr. | |
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Nash in 2006
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Born |
Bluefield, West Virginia, U.S. |
June 13, 1928
Died | May 23, 2015 Monroe Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey, U.S. |
(aged 86)
Citizenship | United States |
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Alma mater |
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Doctoral advisor | Albert W. Tucker |
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Spouse | Alicia Lopez-Harrison de Lardé (m. 1957–1963) (divorced); (m. 2001–2015) (their deaths) |
Children | 2 |
John Forbes Nash Jr. (June 13, 1928 – May 23, 2015) was an American mathematician who made fundamental contributions to game theory, differential geometry, and the study of partial differential equations. Nash's work has provided insight into the factors that govern chance and decision-making inside complex systems found in everyday life.
His theories are widely used in economics. Serving as a Senior Research Mathematician at Princeton University during the latter part of his life, he shared the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with game theorists Reinhard Selten and John Harsanyi. In 2015, he also shared the Abel Prize with Louis Nirenberg for his work on nonlinear partial differential equations.
In 1959, Nash began showing clear signs of mental illness, and spent several years at psychiatric hospitals being treated for paranoid schizophrenia. After 1970, his condition slowly improved, allowing him to return to academic work by the mid-1980s. His struggles with his illness and his recovery became the basis for Sylvia Nasar's biography, A Beautiful Mind, as well as a film of the same name starring Russell Crowe.
On May 23, 2015, Nash and his wife, Alicia Nash, were killed in a car crash while riding in a taxi on the New Jersey Turnpike.