John Conway – The world’s most charismatic mathematician

Reposting after a prod from the mods because there is so much fascinating stuff e.g. this quote from James Propp, professor of mathematics at the University of Massachusetts Lowell:

“Conway is the rare sort of mathematician whose ability to connect his pet mathematical interests makes one wonder if he isn’t, at some level, shaping mathematical reality and not just exploring it. The example of this that I know best is a connection he discovered between sphere packing and games. These were two separate areas of study that Conway had arrived at by two different paths. So there’s no reason for them to be linked. But somehow, through the force of his personality, and the intensity of his passion, he bent the mathematical universe to his will.”

The narrative of this piece is really great -- that the most charismatic mathematician around just up and decided to reinvent himself as a charismatic person. I gained a bunch of weight a couple years ago, and I genuinely feel like a funnier, more gregarious person because of it. It's interesting to think about how much of your personality is really "you".

I met him over 30 years ago, a great teacher as you wrote.

The best part of his teachings was probably sitting around in the commons area during the evenings and solving problems with him. Sure, his lectures were amazing, but the evenings were even better.

I took Math 217 (Honors Linear Algebra) [1] with John Conway back in undergrad. Here are some anecdotes.

He announced that the midterm would be open notes. We study accordingly. We get to the midterm, and he is in California for a conference. A grad student is proctoring. We tell him that that the professor told us that it would be open notes. The grad student chuckles, says no way, the students outraged, and the exam proceeds closed notes. I guess he forgot to tell his grad student!

My friend comes to the exam late, didn't hear about the closed notes update, takes the exam open notes (how did his neighbor not notice?), turns himself into Conway later. The class average was something like 32 points out of 95.

After the midterm results, he was dismayed that he "had clearly done a poor job teaching us," and proceeded to spend the next 3 lectures going over the first 6 weeks of the course at a furious pace.

A classmate had met Conway back at a summer math camp during High School. John Conway had a real bicycle around his neck. He proclaimed that in the future if she sees a John Conway without a bicycle around his neck, that he is not the real John Conway! (much to our dismay he never came to class with a bicycle around his neck. I think he did, however, come to class with a metal cloths hanger around his neck. I think he did a trick involving one or more of these that day)

If students seemed a bit sleepy during lecture, he would routinely start to suddenly lecture at the top of his lungs. I definitely remember jumping up in my seat many times because of this. In one occasion, he opted to take off his shoe and throw it as hard as he could at the window for similar effect.

He would lecture and write on the blackboard so fast that we would copy the blackboard furiously for 90 minutes. If I started 2 blackboards behind (there were 6 boards), I would usually not have caught up by the end of lecture.

[1] https://www.math.princeton.edu/undergraduate/course/mat217