John Horton Conway, the John von Neumann Professor in Applied and Computation Mathematics, Emeritus, at Princeton, passed away on April 11, while suffering from corona virus Covid-19.
Readers of this blog likely know him for his theorem that, in Gale and Shapley's marriage model with strict preferences, the set of stable matchings is a lattice with respect to the partial order of the men's common preferences, or the women's, and that these two lattices are the dual of one another. This helped us understand the observation already made by Gale and Shapley that the set of stable matchings included a man-optimal stable matching that every man likes at least as much as any stable matching, and similarly a woman-optimal stable matching that is (weakly) preferred by all the women to any other stable matching (and that the best stable matching for the men is the worst for the women and vice versa).
He was a man of wide interests and many theorems. (When I met him once and told him that he was famous in the market design community for his lattice theorem about stable matching, he pretended not to know which theorem I meant.)
Here are some obituaries (which focus on some of his more widely famous accomplishments):
COVID-19 Kills Renowned Princeton Mathematician, 'Game Of Life' Inventor John Conway In 3 Days
""I am sorry to confirm the passing of my colleague John Conway. An incomparable mathematician, a pleasant neighbor, and an excellent coffee acquaintance," Wang tweeted.
...
"Conway's most notable contribution to his field may have been his invention of the Game of Life, leading to the popularization of cellular automaton."
*********
John Conway Dies From Coronavirus
"According to Princeton University Conway's proudest achievement was the invention of new system of numbers, the surreal numbers—a continuum of numbers that include not only real numbers but also the infinitesimal and the infinite numbers, noting:
"When he discovered them in 1970, the surreals had John wandering around in a white-hot daydream for weeks.
"His surreal numbers inspired a mathematical novel by Donald Knuth, which includes the line:
“Conway said to the numbers, ‘Be fruitful and multiply.’”
"He also invented a naming system for exceedingly large numbers, the Conway chained arrow notation."
"His The Book of Numbers (coauthored with Richard Guy, who himself recently passed away at age 103) made a huge impression on me as a teenager. I worked through every page, gasping at gems like eĎ€√163 (“no, you can’t be serious…”), embarrassed to be learning so much from a “fun, popular” book but grateful that my ignorance of such basic matters was finally being remedied."
Readers of this blog likely know him for his theorem that, in Gale and Shapley's marriage model with strict preferences, the set of stable matchings is a lattice with respect to the partial order of the men's common preferences, or the women's, and that these two lattices are the dual of one another. This helped us understand the observation already made by Gale and Shapley that the set of stable matchings included a man-optimal stable matching that every man likes at least as much as any stable matching, and similarly a woman-optimal stable matching that is (weakly) preferred by all the women to any other stable matching (and that the best stable matching for the men is the worst for the women and vice versa).
He was a man of wide interests and many theorems. (When I met him once and told him that he was famous in the market design community for his lattice theorem about stable matching, he pretended not to know which theorem I meant.)
Here are some obituaries (which focus on some of his more widely famous accomplishments):
COVID-19 Kills Renowned Princeton Mathematician, 'Game Of Life' Inventor John Conway In 3 Days
""I am sorry to confirm the passing of my colleague John Conway. An incomparable mathematician, a pleasant neighbor, and an excellent coffee acquaintance," Wang tweeted.
...
"Conway's most notable contribution to his field may have been his invention of the Game of Life, leading to the popularization of cellular automaton."
*********
John Conway Dies From Coronavirus
"According to Princeton University Conway's proudest achievement was the invention of new system of numbers, the surreal numbers—a continuum of numbers that include not only real numbers but also the infinitesimal and the infinite numbers, noting:
"When he discovered them in 1970, the surreals had John wandering around in a white-hot daydream for weeks.
"His surreal numbers inspired a mathematical novel by Donald Knuth, which includes the line:
“Conway said to the numbers, ‘Be fruitful and multiply.’”
"He also invented a naming system for exceedingly large numbers, the Conway chained arrow notation."
*******
And this, from Scott Aaronson:
John Horton Conway (1937-2020)And this, from Scott Aaronson:
"His The Book of Numbers (coauthored with Richard Guy, who himself recently passed away at age 103) made a huge impression on me as a teenager. I worked through every page, gasping at gems like eĎ€√163 (“no, you can’t be serious…”), embarrassed to be learning so much from a “fun, popular” book but grateful that my ignorance of such basic matters was finally being remedied."
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