From the archives: John Horton Conway: the world’s most charismatic mathematician – podcast

The Audio Long Read

The Guardian

Society & Culture

4.3 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 1 September 2021

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We are raiding the Audio Long Read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, from 2015: John Horton Conway is a cross between Archimedes, Mick Jagger and Salvador Dalí. For many years, he worried that his obsession with playing silly games was ruining his career – until he realised that it could lead to extraordinary discoveries.. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, my name is Hannah Frankson, I'm a Peloton instructor and I teach classes on the Peloton
0:05.0	Bike and the Peloton Trud.
0:07.0	Nothing motivates me more than the thought of enjoying life to the fullest.
0:11.7	Life is always for so many different challenges and chapters.
0:15.3	For me, movement and exercise has been there throughout every stage of my life.
0:19.0	Just living life to the max is what motivates me.
0:22.0	The Guardian Lives has partnered with Peloton to help you find motivation that moves you.
0:26.2	To find out more, visit thegardian.com board slash motivation with Peloton.
0:30.5	This message was paid for by Peloton.
0:33.5	The Guardian
0:37.7	Hi, my name is Shavan Roberts.
0:41.4	The piece you're about to hear is an adapted excerpt from my biography of John Horton Conway,
0:46.4	titled Genius at Play, published by Bloomsbury in 2015.
0:51.2	John died last year, to the complications from COVID, age 82.
0:55.4	I miss him, he'd become a friend, and as a source he was such good value, riveting
1:00.2	and wise about so many subjects, mathematical and otherwise.
1:04.4	I'd known John for almost 20 years, I met him while writing my first book about his
1:08.8	friend and fellow Geometer, Donald Coxeter.
1:11.9	Conway was hard to pin down initially, but I eventually found him at a summer math camp
1:16.1	in Massachusetts.
1:17.5	He was as 60-something nerd as Grungy as all the teenage campers.
1:21.6	And immediately I knew that Conway was a book.
	...

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