EQUILIBRIUM:

John Nash, subject of A Beautiful Mind, testifies as expert witness (Canadian Press, November 15, 2002)

The Princeton University professor testified at a hearing Thursday for the DuPont Co., which is being sued by some Florida farmers. The farmers are suing their former lawyers and the company over a $59-million settlement involving the DuPont fungicide Benlate. The growers claim their former lawyers entered into a side deal with DuPont for $6.4 million as an assurance they wouldn't file another Benlate lawsuit. The trial is expected to begin in January.

But Nash, 74, wasn't in court to discuss chemicals.

He testified about game theory, the work that made him famous and became the basis for a large part of modern economics.

DuPont paid Nash $500 an hour to testify because his ideas were used by Robert Lanzillotti, a former University of Florida dean of business administration, in a study that supports the farmers' case.

DuPont says the principles used by Lanzillotti aren't generally accepted in the economics community and his research should not be presented at the upcoming trial.

Nash spent more than an hour on the stand, answering questions from lawyers and Circuit Judge Chester Chance.

Mr. Nash, even prior to his illness, was a pretty unappealing character. But it's difficult not to be moved by his perseverance against a terrible disease and by his learning to deal with it. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 17, 2002 7:10 PM