Talk:John Horton Conway

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John has indeed been married three times. First wife Eileen, second wife Larissa, third wife Diana. His son Alex was born in 1983, and Oliver in 1988, to answer the below question.

Diana Conway 24.225.176.66 03:58, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


There is also another mathematician called John Conway (working in complex analysis and associated with Indiana University). Perhaps there should be some mention of this in this article.

Despite having his book, and having attended IU, I was never tempted to confuse the two. Septentrionalis 18:43, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Image

On the same page as the image here now, there are a few other images, including one much less blurry and in color. Should it perhaps be changed? N Shar 00:55, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there may be problems with images from that site. They don't know for certain that the pics are public domain, and the one taken by Paul Halmos, for example, is almost certainly not in public domain. I had a picture of RH Bing that I got from the site, deleted because it was not clearly public domain. So I suspect the pic in the article too may raise issues. --C S (Talk) 07:15, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Thane Plambeck has provided a good, recent, fully cc-by-2.0 licensed photo. He even cleared it with JHC.Dan Hoey 17:40, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Cool, in color and an interesting angle. --C S (Talk) 17:53, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Michael Guy

I changed a mistaken reference from Richard Guy to Michael Guy in regards to uniform polychora. [1] Tom Ruen 21:34, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Michael Guy now points to a musician. I am replacing the mathematical links I can find that now point to his article to Michael J. T. Guy. —David Eppstein 03:39, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Family

I'm sure that Conway has been married three times. His second wife was Lara Queen (also a mathematician), the mother of Alex (fondly termed the "Baby Monster") and Oliver. I don't know the dates, though. Richard Pinch 11:41, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Infobox Discussion

The infobox on the Conway article has been removed. Please discuss your arguments for removal or retention in order to acheive consensus. Here is a sample to remind you what it looked like:

John Horton Conway
Born December 26, 1937
Liverpool, England
Residence USA
Nationality English
Fields Mathematician
Institutions Princeton University
Alma mater University of Cambridge
Doctoral advisor Harold Davenport
Doctoral students Richard Borcherds, Robert Curtis, Charles Ferenbaugh, Timothy Hsu, Richard Margolin, Adrian Mathias, William Schneeburger, Christopher Simons, Derek Smith, Jonathan Smith, Warren Smith, Leonard Soicher, Frank Swenton, Robert Wilson
Known for Game of life, groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory
Religious stance Atheist

bunix 03:20, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


Well, over a week has passed and there have been no dissenting voices. So I am now reverting the infobox. In future, please discuss here before doing large removals. bunix 08:45, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry not to have noticed this; but I would think a much shorter infobox would be preferable. This takes up half the page with repetitions. Septentrionalis 17:57, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I personally don't like this infobox very much. I think it's better to have the info in prose form in the body of the article. In any case, the infobox is much too long. --C S (Talk) 00:11, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, I have ruthlessly shortened it to comply with your suggestions. If anyone else has anymore suggestion or arguments for and against inclusion of stuff, I am happy to try to oblige. Best regards, bunix 01:12, 21 August 2006 (UTC)


Hi, give a link to several online articles of Conway : http://www.math.princeton.edu/facultypapers/Conway/ the tiles are Lectures

Calendar Conundrums Archimedes and His World Cantor's Infinities Goedel and Undecidability Geometry, Logic and Physics Escher and Symmetry Finally, Fun

at lease some of them have been read at Northwestern U.

[edit] Game theory

An entire section on game theory was removed by anon 24.225.224.116. Thoughts? Tom Ruen 20:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Oops, I didn't even notice that had happened! Obviously it shouldn't have been removed. It looks inadvertent, so I've added it back. --C S (Talk) 21:38, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cellular Automata

"... the Game of Life, a cellular automata". Hm. Automata is plural, and the Game of Life is just one example of a cellular automaton, but the link is to the plural form. How do we handle this? Andrew 06:31, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Angel problem

The article stated that the angel problem was solved in 2006. I removed it, please give a source, the article angel problem says it's still unsolved. 83.23.241.179 12:05, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, the lede of angel problem said that, although the body didn't really say that. But I admit the situation would have been hard to make out anyway as the info that two of the four claimed proof was published had been removed. That info has been re-added. --C S (Talk) 12:56, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Oops, I should change the lede too! --C S (Talk) 12:59, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] references?

I am surprised that there are basically no cited references in this page and that various biographical facts are not explicitly sourced. It should be easy enough to provide explicit references for most salient facts (honors, prizes, etc). Regards, Nsk92 14:59, 12 September 2007 (UTC)