John Conway has died • Hacker News Board

Re: John Conway has died

#171

Post by ColinWright » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 7:08 PM UTC

credit_guy wrote: post #34

I only once saw John Conway giving a talk. I don't remember the topic (it was >20y ago), but I remember how it went. He gave some definitions, then started to give some examples and work out on the blackboard some calculations. It all felt quite trivial. At some point one calculation doesn't work out. He checked again, but still it didn't work. He started pacing in front of the blackboard, and said that this is quite…

Hoping you read this ... can you get in touch with me please? Contact email is in my profile ... thanks.

Re: John Conway has died

#172

Post by oblib » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 7:31 PM UTC

ivansavz wrote: post #147

Ologn wrote: post #117

Of course, Conway was a serious mathematician who was slightly vexed that the thing he might be most remembered for is what he considered a cast-off game that he dabbled with in the late 1960s. Conway talked about determinism (and free will) from a mathematical and scientific perspective in interviews and lectures. I found what he had to say very interesting - I don't know if he came up with all the ideas he talked a…

Based on your comment, I found these lecture series "The Free Will Lectures - John Conway [2009]" = https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhsb6tmzSpixUGjmJq6g9... and saving to watch later.

>>Conway talked about determinism (and free will)... >>>Based on your comment, I found these...

The math is over my head but this really piqued my curiosity.

I watched the first video yesterday and am looking forward to going through them all. He really is quite interesting.

I'm sure I'll take in one of his other lectures afterwards, but I generally have a hard time following those so maybe these will help ease me into that some. His opening bit about quantum physics might have of cracked open that door a little for me.

Re: John Conway has died

#173

Post by WalterBright » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 8:05 PM UTC

swyx wrote: post #157

_cs2017_ wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the lecture about? I don't suppose there were any recordings?

>20y ago so the odds are low but not impossible (feynman's lectures are on youtube). just sad to think how many great lectures have been lost to time tho

> feynman's lectures are on youtube

Only a tiny handful. Feynman gave a guest lecture at our physics class at Caltech in the 70's on potato chip worlds. As far as I know, it only persists in my memory.

I sometimes wonder why I didn't buy a cheap cassette recorder and record a bunch of lectures from then. Probably because nobody else did, either.

Re: John Conway has died

#174

Post by gbronner » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 8:21 PM UTC

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #145

CraigRo wrote: post #123

Conway was a legend in the math department. Possibly because he actually lived there -- at one point he got kicked out of his house, and took the office opposite his as a bedroom. A few months later, an artist showed up to paint portraits of famous mathematicians around the border of the ceiling. Apart from that, the login to his computer required calculating the correct day of week of 10 dates in the last 2000 years…

> Possibly because he actually lived there -- at one point he got kicked out of his house, and took the office opposite his as a bedroom. I get a bit envious of these stories of American academics actually being able to live in their offices. In my experience in Central Europe, you can stay overnight in your office to work, but sleeping is forbidden, even if you are the head of your department. It is not uncommon for…

"Living" was a bit of a misnomer. The rumor was that he'd stopped opening his mail, and thus his wife got the house in the divorce by default. The second office had a fairly long couch that he slept on, but I'd imagine he showered at the gym, and it didn't look particularly home-like.

His office was always one of the more welcoming places -- he picked the one closest to the Common Room and the classrooms so he'd have more interaction with students. He also had all nature of toys, geometric models, puzzles, and games strewn around -- it was really a joy to be near him.

Re: John Conway has died

#175

Post by hdivider » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 8:32 PM UTC

It appears he died by COVID-19:

https://dailyvoice.com/new-jersey/mercer/obituaries/covid-19...

I went through some of his work in detail while in college. While a mathematician, he clearly had the complexity-compression ability of a top-tier theoretical physicist. A great loss indeed.

Re: John Conway has died

#176

Post by dghughes » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 8:50 PM UTC

I bought John Conway's Game of Life book that came with a 5 1/4 floppy before I even had a computer.

Re: John Conway has died

#177

Post by btilly » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 10:44 PM UTC

hypersoar wrote: post #83

Here's my John Conway story: I went to Canada/USA Mathcamp in 2009, which fell in the period when he would come for about a week, giving talks and just hanging out with all us kids. You might have lunch with him and he'd talk about his "Free Will Theorem", or the Doomsday Algorithm[1]. He would often play games with us in the afternoon. I remember seeing him play Phutball[2], a game of his own design, taking heavy ha…

I got to be witness to the Dots & Boxes challenge in the mid-90s. He was less sure, only one of us got to play him.

I later put several hours in and figured out the guaranteed win and why it was so hard to find. But have since forgotten it.

Re: John Conway has died

#178

Post by segfaultbuserr » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 11:47 PM UTC

DonHopkins wrote: post #143

sndean wrote: post #10

There were several videos that Numberphile did with Conway, including one where he talked about what problems he'd like to see before he died and his own mortality [0]. In particular he wanted to know why the Monster group [1] exists, what it's about, why it's there [2]. I don't know enough about it to know if progress was made toward that in the past few years since the video was made. [0] https://www.youtube.com/wa…

TIL John Conway's son was once known as "the baby monster", and that Jupiter has a whole lot of elementary particles, but I can't quite grasp the rest of what I just read. http://www.ams.org/notices/200209/what-is.pdf >What is... The Monster? By Richard E. Borcherds. >When I was a graduate student, my supervisor John Conway would bring into the department his one year-old son, who was soon known as the baby monster.…

It's an introduction to Monstrous Moonshine, an unexpected connection between the monster group M and modular functions, with applications in theoretical physics, see Wikipedia [0] for a summary.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monstrous_moonshine