Factual error: In a scene that takes place in 1956 or 1957, Alicia Nash places an orange Tupperware container in the refrigerator. Although Tupperware first became very popular in the mid-50s, the particular model of Tupperware used in the film was not introduced until the late 60s or early 70s.
Factual error: The baby's pacifier that was used was not made at that time. It looked more like a NUK than the old rounded rubber tip.
Factual error: When John Nash returns from the Pentagon to his place of employment, he walks by an American flag. The flag has the staggered row arrangement of the current 50 stars, not the 48 star flag as it would have been in the 1950s.
Factual error: When Alicia is wheeling her baby in front of Nassau Hall on the Princeton Campus and talking to Nash's former colleague, the building's handicapped access ramp is clearly visible in the background - not in those days...
Factual error: Mid movie, they show a Timex wall clock. But Timex did not make synchronized wall clocks. Simplex did.
Factual error: During the car chase, a rear window brake light is visible in John's car as he looks back at his pursuers. These devices weren't invented until the 1980s.
Factual error: When Nash and his fellow student are playing Go in the Princeton University commons, Cannon Green, you can see two tiger sculptures beyond them. These sculptures were not added to the campus until 1969 when Princeton became a co-educational (previously, it was all men) institution.
Factual error: The scenes where Nash is home, recuperating, feature a radio that he listens to, first on the porch, then later in his den. The timeframe, according to the movie titling, is 1956, whereas the radio is a transistorized Zenith TransOceanic (Royal 1000), introduced in late 1958.
Factual error: At the Nobel Prize Ceremony, Nash is giving a speech. During a wide-shot right before he leaves the stage, you can see a few girls wearing white military style caps (to the right of the screen). Hats are in fact worn by Swedish students at the Nobel Prize Ceremony, however the style is completely different. The caps should have a much smaller, soft crown and not the wide crown of a military hat.
Factual error: John Nash enters Princeton as a graduate student (Ph.D.) candidate in 1947. By that time the Graduate College had already been built (1913) and is about three miles from the main campus. At that time, all graduate students had to live at the Graduate College building, and not where Nash is shown living with his imaginary roommate at the center of campus.
Answer: There was always a basis of reality for his delusion. As I recall it, early on, Nash was actually recruited by the Pentagon to study encrypted telecommunications of foreign enemies. Nash's association with the government appears to have been limited, but it became a springboard for his extreme fantasy of working for the U.S. Department of Defense and with the unreal Agent Parcher.
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