Princeton Univ. honored mathematician John Nash Saturday with panels and a memorial service.
PRINCETON - To the world, late Princeton professor John Nash was a famed mathematician and subject of the 2001 Oscar-winning film "A Beautiful Mind."
To the people closest to him, he was much more.
Nash was a man with a long-running love story; a man who chose his words carefully and intelligently; and a man who often had a slight smile playing across his lips.
"(It was) as if he were amused by some inner joke," Nash's friend Louis Nirenberg said.
Nirenberg was one of many family and friends who spoke at a memorial service for Nash and his wife, Alicia Nash, Saturday at the Princeton University Chapel.
It was part of a day full of lectures on Nash's work, a speech from the author of his biography and hours of remembrance for the former Princeton professor.
The university has been planning the event since Nash's death in May. The mathematician and his wife died in a taxi crash on the New Jersey Turnpike. They were coming back to their home in Princeton Junction from Norway where Nash was visiting to accept the Abel Prize for Mathematics.
The event - called a "life and work day" by university officials - closed Saturday with a chunk of "life." Some of Nash's friends and his oldest son addressed the packed chapel Saturday night, recalling often-untold stories of the professor who was also a "family man" according to his son, John Stier.
"His story was almost too incredible to be believed ... the world felt a personal connection to John and Alicia Nash," Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber wrote in a letter that was read in the service Saturday.
Friend James Manganaro remembered the talent Nash had with words. When Manganaro's wife died, he said Nash wrote him a heartfelt letter about love and mortality.
"I have never heard the (English) language used with such clarity," Manganaro said.
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While much of the service honored Nash, his wife, Alicia Nash, was recognized not just as an intelligent woman but also a support for Nash as he struggled with schizophrenia.
"The Nash family would not have survived without her tenacious strength and courage," David Smith, of the MIT alumni association, said about Alicia Nash, who graduated from MIT and was active with the association.
Nash's oldest son, John Stier took the podium Saturday night to close off the discussion and remember his father's connection to a true love - Princeton and its university.
"Here was the place where he was always accepted and never criticized," Stier said of the town where Nash chose to spend much of his career and life. "Princeton is - and will always be - his home."
Anna Merriman may be reached at amerriman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @anna_merriman Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook.