I’m surprised that Nash never won the Fields Medal. What is the story, if any, behind that oversight? Some of my friends in mathematics think more of his work in math than the work he did in game theory that led (eventually) to his Nobel Prize in economics.
Several of us mathematicians are surprised that he didn’t win the Fields Medal as well. He had done way more than necessary mathematics and made breakthroughs in many diverse areas. I was talking to a colleague about this and he speculated that when it would have been Nash’s turned they passed him up due to the mental illness.
The Abel Prize that he received and died on the way home from the ceremony in Norway, in a way, is more prestigious than the Fields Medal, although it is given towards the end of one’s career.