John and Alicia Nash were taking a taxi on Saturday afternoon. The driver attempted to pass another car, lost control and spun into the guardrails. The Nash’s were not wearing seatbelts and were thrown from the car and both were killed.
Google ‘John Nash’ and Wikipedia will tell you that he “was an American mathematician with notable contributions in game theory, differential geometry, and partial differential equations. Nash’s work has provided insight into the factors that govern chance and events inside complex systems in daily life.
His theories are used in economics, computing, evolutionary biology, artificial intelligence, accounting, computer science (minimax algorithm which is based on Nash Equilibrium), games of skill, politics and military theory. 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 was awarded the Abel Prize for his work on nonlinear partial differential equations.”
John Forbes Nash Jr. came to be known to most of us through the 2001 movie, A Beautiful Mind. He was played by actor Russell Crow and the movie opened up to its viewers a look into what it might feel like to live with paranoid schizophrenia.
Nash showed signs of the illness in 1959 and spent years being treated, He was able to return to the world of Mathematics, teaching and research in 1970.
In the 50’s and 60’s the treatment of his illness was just emerging. But from those years to his death Nash lived in a society that, at its worst, stigmatizes those with a different brain composition, and at its best, pities them. Despite that John Nash did truly live with his illness. The capturing of the story in the book and subsequent movie gave people a glimpse of the implications of mental illness and Nash’s accomplishments helped us see beyond the illness.
John Nash said it best when he explained, “People are always selling the idea that people with mental illness are suffering. I think madness can be an escape. If things are not so good, you maybe want to imagine something better.”
We live in a culture where uniformity is seen as desirable. Young people (and adults too) do their best to fit in and conform. John Nash stands as a beacon as one who recognized his different abilities and embraced them. He knew he was different and he kept his individuality. He left a legacy that is even greater than his mathematical accomplishments and his awards. He taught people how to live well.
