John Conway
John Horton Conway (born December 26, 1937, Liverpool, England) is a prolific mathematician active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory.
Among amateur mathematicians, he is perhaps most widely known for his combinatorial game theory, in particular the creation of the Game of Life. He is also one of the inventors of the Sprouts game, as well as Phutball, and he developed detailed analyses of many other games and puzzles, such as the Soma cube.
He invented a new number system, the surreal numbers, which are closely related to certain games and have been the subject of a mathematical novel by Donald Knuth. He also invented an nomenclature for exceedingly large numbers, the Conway chained arrow.
Conway is professor of mathematics at Princeton University. He studied at Cambridge University. In 1981 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
He has written several books including On Numbers and Games and Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays.
Many authors put his name on their papers to have the papers published.
External links and references
- O' Connor, Robertson, "John Horton Conway", MacTutor biography, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/Mathematicians/Conway.html
- Mark Alpert, "Not Just Fun and Games", Scientific American April 1999. online version
Referenced By
Adjoint functor | Adjoint functors | Combinatorial game theory (history) | Conway | Conway's Game of Life | Conway chained arrow | Conway group | Conways Game of Life | Conways Life | Game Theory | Game of Life | Game of sprouts | Gathering for Gardner | Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution | Hackers Heroes of the Computer Revolution | Hasbro's Game of Life | Hasbros Game of Life | Higman-Sims group | Knot polynomial | LIFE | List of combinatorics topics | List of group theory topics | List of mathematical topics | List of mathematical topics (A-C) | List of mathematicians | List of mathematics topics | List of people by name: Co | Martin Gardener | Martin Gardner | Mathematical Games | Mathematical game | Mathematical puzzle | McLaughlin group | Nimber | On Numbers and Games | Philosopher's Football | Philospher's Football | Phutball | Recreational mathematics | Skein relation | Soma cube | Sprouts game | SurrealNumbers | Surreal number | Surreal numbers | Suzuki sporadic group | The Game of Life | Von Neumann machine | Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays
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