John H. Conway
Apr. 12th, 2020 10:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowIt's being reported that John Horton Conway has died, of Covid-19.
This one hurts. Conway was a great and versatile mathematician. Non-mathematicians may know him as the inventor of the Game of Life - not the Milton Bradley board game, but the one played with black and white stones on a go board. I have several of his books and have read at least two more. He wrote on combinatorial game theory, on crystallography, on the theory of quadratic forms, on Euclidean geometry... One of my proudest memories is of the time I proposed a name for a certain phenomenon in triangle geometry, and he approved it. He was very fussy about names, for good and cogent reasons, and to win his approval delighted me.
Rest in peace, Professor Conway, and may the Great Geometer continue to give you things to think about.
This one hurts. Conway was a great and versatile mathematician. Non-mathematicians may know him as the inventor of the Game of Life - not the Milton Bradley board game, but the one played with black and white stones on a go board. I have several of his books and have read at least two more. He wrote on combinatorial game theory, on crystallography, on the theory of quadratic forms, on Euclidean geometry... One of my proudest memories is of the time I proposed a name for a certain phenomenon in triangle geometry, and he approved it. He was very fussy about names, for good and cogent reasons, and to win his approval delighted me.
Rest in peace, Professor Conway, and may the Great Geometer continue to give you things to think about.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-26 11:55 pm (UTC)Farewell my friend.