Genius at Play
eBook - ePub

Genius at Play

The Curious Mind of John Horton Conway

  1. 480 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Genius at Play

The Curious Mind of John Horton Conway

About this book

A multifaceted biography of a brilliant mathematician and iconoclast

A mathematician unlike any other, John Horton Conway (1937–2020) possessed a rock star’s charisma, a polymath’s promiscuous curiosity, and a sly sense of humor. Conway found fame as a barefoot professor at Cambridge, where he discovered the Conway groups in mathematical symmetry and the aptly named surreal numbers. He also invented the cult classic Game of Life, a cellular automaton that demonstrates how simplicity generates complexity—and provides an analogy for mathematics and the entire universe. Moving to Princeton in 1987, Conway used ropes, dice, pennies, coat hangers, and the occasional Slinky to illustrate his winning imagination and share his nerdish delights. Genius at Play tells the story of this ambassador-at-large for the beauties and joys of mathematics, lays bare Conway’s personal and professional idiosyncrasies, and offers an intimate look into the mind of one of the twentieth century’s most endearing and original intellectuals.

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Yes, you can access Genius at Play by Siobhan Roberts in PDF and/or ePUB format. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. Contents
  7. Prologue
  8. Act I
  9. Act II
  10. Act III
  11. Epilogue
  12. Appendix A. On Morley’s Trisector Theorem
  13. Appendix B. The Lexicode Dictionary
  14. Appendix C. Surreally
  15. Author’s Note
  16. Acknowledgments
  17. A Select Conway Bibliography
  18. Bibliography
  19. Notes
  20. Epigraph and Art Credits
  21. Index
  22. Also by Siobhan Roberts