The thing is that there can be in mathematics, particularly in number theory, there can be

theorems about numbers that are tremendously hard to prove, and maybe when you've proved them,

you don't feel you've got any insight as to why they're true.

I mean, in fact, asking why, although I keep on asking why, I don't understand what it means to ask why.

And I don't understand what would count as an answer to that question.

That's the voice of John Horton Conway.

He died this week at the age of 82.

He wasn't just one of the great mathematicians of his generation.

He was also one of the great characters.

I interviewed Conway for a series of number file videos back in 2014.

You'll hear a few clips from those videos today,

including a few that weren't used originally, playing them for the first time here.

I'll also be speaking to other people about their thoughts on Conway.

First, it's the woman who wrote the book on him, quite literally.

Chavon Roberts was Conway's biographer.

So I first met him when I was writing my biography of Coxeter.

So that would have been 2003.

I tracked him down at a math camp that he was at for a couple of weeks.

Conway was at this math camp.

So that was 2003.

And then, you know, when you first meet Conway and being a writer, I kind of knew immediately,

well, here's a fantastic subject for a book.

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