john forbes nash jr was an american mathematician he was born in 1928 in west virginia and was a pioneer in the study of differential geometry and partial differential equations he also developed an equilibrium theory known as the nash equilibrium of which the prisoner s dilemma is a well known example nash won the 1994 nobel prize in economics along with two other individuals for his development of the mathematical foundations of game theory nash died in a car crash in 2015 
investopedia lara antalearly life and educationjohn f nash jr was born in bluefield west virginia in 1928 instead of economics nash studied math at carnegie institute of technology and later earned his doctorate from princeton university at the age of 22 1 it was at princeton that he began work on his equilibrium theory he worked at mit and for the rand corporation nash was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1959 the condition had a negative impact on his career for more than two decades by the early 1970s nash received treatment that allowed his condition to improve to the point that he was able to begin teaching again at princeton he served as a senior research mathematician at the school for the last 20 years of his life there he later became known as the phantom of fine hall for his habit of filling blackboards with complex equations during the night when no one else was around 23in 2015 john and alicia nash were killed when the taxi they were riding in crashed in new jersey he was 86 and she was 82 they were returning from norway where nash was awarded the 2015 abel prize from the norwegian academy of science and letters 3nash was portrayed by russell crowe in the 2001 academy award winning film a beautiful mind the film chronicles his life along with that of his wife alicia as they struggled between his genius and his mental illness it was based on the 1998 biography by sylvia nasar notable accomplishments and deedsnash is credited with several key mathematical theories that helped him forge a name in the field these included the following nash offered a speech that looked back on his tumultuous but accomplished life and concluded as noted above nash was awarded the nobel prize in economics in 1994 he shared the award with two other individuals john c harsanyi and reinhard selten they were given the prize for their pioneering analysis of equilibria in the theory of non cooperative games 5nash also received the abel prize in 2015 named after niels henrik abel it is norway s award for those who achieve milestones in the field of mathematics it is awarded on behalf of the country s education ministry by the norwegian academy of science and letter 67as noted earlier nash made great strides with his work in mathematics he developed several mathematical concepts including the nash embedding theorem through his work he was also able to recognize the difference between cooperative those where multiple players have the same objective and non cooperative games games that involve individual players who compete with one another 