[ R.I.P. ] John horton Conway (1937-2020)

Page 1 of 1 [ 2 posts ] 

Fnord
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 6 May 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 60,939
Location:      

12 Apr 2020, 5:08 pm

John Horton Conway, one of the great mathematicians and math communicators of the past half-century, has died at age 82.  Apparently it was the coronavirus.  Yes, the self-replicating snippet of math that’s now terrorizing the whole human race, in part because those in power couldn’t or wouldn’t understand exponential growth.  Conway is perhaps the nasty bugger's most distinguished casualty so far.

Scott Aaronson wrote a nice memoriam (with comments)
Here.

Image



slave
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 28 Feb 2012
Age: 112
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,420
Location: Dystopia Planetia

21 Apr 2020, 5:42 am

An outstanding Mathematician..."he held the title of John von Neumann Professor Emeritus at Princeton University for the rest of his career."

"A versatile mathematician who combines a deep combinatorial insight with algebraic virtuosity, particularly in the construction and manipulation of "off-beat" algebraic structures which illuminate a wide variety of problems in completely unexpected ways. He has made distinguished contributions to the theory of finite groups, to the theory of knots, to mathematical logic (both set theory and automata theory) and to the theory of games (as also to its practice)."

Source:Wikipedia.

A life well lived, Dr. Conway. :hail: :hail: :hail: :hail: :hail: :hail: :hail: