New York

JOHN Nash Jr, a mathematician who shared a Nobel Prize in 1994 for work that greatly extended the reach and power of modern economic theory and whose long descent into severe mental illness and eventual recovery were the subject of a book and a 2001 film, both titled A Beautiful Mind, was killed, along with his wife, in a car crash on Saturday in New Jersey. He was 86.

Professor Nash and his wife, Alicia, 82, were in a taxi on the New Jersey Turnpike in Monroe Township around 4:30pm when the driver lost control while veering from the left lane to the right and hit a guardrail and another car. The couple were ejected from the cab and pronounced dead at the scene.