John Conway
A few days ago John Conway died because of complications due to the coronavirus disease.
Many thoughts come to mind related to that.
I think about the crazy and broken health system in the US that is helping spread this pandemic. I don't know exactly how much of it is responsible for the eventual infection of Conway though, but it certainly seems much worse than in basically any other first-world country.
I'm also reminded of when Martin Gardner died 10 years ago. It was shocking news to me, since I had such a big appreciation for him. At the time I wanted to create a game in his honor, but never actually got to do it. And my appreciation for Conway is very similar. Unsurprisingly, they were good friends and collaborators during their lives.
The first time that I learned about Conway was, like many did, through the Game of Life. It was amazing that such complex behavior could emerge from simple rules. It was also playful, and visual. It made you feel how complexity was emerging in front of your own eyes. Despite Conway's getting upset with it due to becoming so famous because of it, I still think about it very dearly. With time I've come to appreciate it even more, and had fun using it as an example in arguments related to evolution — no need for a designer/god or anything here to get emergent complex behavior!
Of the many other things he did, I particularly like the surreal numbers. When I learned about them I was already familiarized with the hyperreals and nonstandard analysis, which I found fascinating. They felt just right and gave the satisfaction of revisiting old straitjacketed concepts in calculus with a new fresh light. The existence of the hyperreals hinted at the simplicity that can be achieved when looking at things at the right angle, or so it looked to me. After their discovery, a natural question would be, what other similar number systems are there? How far can you go on that game? The answer, by Conway: the surreals. Such beautiful numbers and with such a fitting name. And I also love the fact that his discovery/invention came by studying the game of Go.
Another Conway-related thing I entertained myself with in the past is the doomsday algorithm. It is fun to find out quickly which day of the week any random day is, and also to see the pattern behind. Since I haven't used it for years, I have forgotten it now though.
Conway has the amusing record of having written one of the shortest papers in history. To me it is one of the many examples that reflects the bright and playful spirit that he was.
A few years ago I read a great article about Conway by Siobhan Roberts in The Guardian. One of the things that surprised me was to know that he had suffered depression in several occasions and that he once even attempted suicide. It is all very human, I think, but my bias told me things like, how can a person like that want to commit suicide? As if being so brilliant would make you necessarily always happy. In a way, knowing that someone of his talent and freshness can host such thoughts makes it more acceptable that one would too.
I like the colorful description that the very Siobhan Roberts gave of him. Conway was “Archimedes, Mick Jagger, Salvador Dali, and Richard Feynman all rolled into one — a singular mathematician, with a rock star's charisma, a sly sense of humor, a polymath's promiscuous curiosity, and a burning desire to explain everything about the world to everyone in it.” It's sad that such a person leaves us. But, very especially, thanks for all the fun you've left us with.