![]() ![]() “My more sedate colleagues would come in occasionally for a cup of coffee or tea, but I’d be there all day long.” Conway’s career didn’t really take off until the late 1960s, when he became intrigued by a theoretical lattice that extends into 24 dimensions. “I used to play backgammon in the common room at Cambridge,” Conway recalls. In his spare time he became an avid backgammon player. It looked so beautiful, I said, ‘Look, Daddy! That’s so nice!’”Ĭonway attended the University of Cambridge, where he studied number theory and logic and eventually joined the faculty of the mathematics department. They were chained together and whirling around. There were spotlights overhead, and I saw the bombs falling from the planes. “While my father was carrying me to our backyard shelter one night, I happened to look up at the sky. Liverpool was being bombed by the German Luftwaffe at the time, and Conway has a lasting memory of one of the air raids. At the age of four, according to his mother, he began reciting the powers of two. And every so often, when I feel guilty, I’ll work on something useful.” Conway’s useful work spans the gamut of mathematical disciplines, ranging from theorems about knots and sphere packing to the discovery of a whole new class of numbers-the aptly named surreal numbers.īorn in Liverpool, England, in 1937, Conway showed an early interest in mathematics. “I usually have half a dozen things running through my head, including games and puzzles. “It’s impossible for me to go into the office and say, ‘Today I’ll write a theorem,’” Conway admits. But over the past three decades Conway has made some of his greatest contributions to mathematical theory by analyzing simple puzzles. To improve his speed, he practices his calendrical calculations on his computer, which is programmed to quiz him with random dates every time he logs on.Īt this point, I begin to wonder why Princeton University is paying this man a salary. He can usually give the correct answer in under two seconds. Called the Doomsday Rule, the algorithm is simple enough for Conway to do the calculations in his head. “No, damn! Wednesday!” Slightly irritated by his error, he explains that long ago he devised an algorithm for determining the day of the week that any given date falls on. “What’s your date of birth?” he asks me soon after we shake hands. The eclectic 61-year-old mathematician is clearly in his element. At the center of it all is Conway himself, leaning back in his chair, his face obscured by oversize glasses and a bushy, gray beard. Several models of crystal lattices sit beside the window, and a pyramid of tennis balls rises from the floor. Dangling among them is a Klein bottle constructed from chicken wire. Dozens of polyhedra made of colored cardboard hang from the ceiling like mirror balls at a discotheque. Conway’s office at Princeton University is like stepping into a mathematician’s playpen. This article from 1999 profiles Conway and his work. Conway passed away from complications of COVID-19. Editor’s Note (4/16/20): On April 11 renowned mathematician John H. ![]()
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