"You know in my early twenties, let's say, people always thought that I would, you know, be a great mathematician. And be good at various things and so on. And in my late twenties, I hadn't achieved any of the things that people were predicting, and so I call it my black period. I started to wonder you know whether it was all nonsense. Whether I was not a good mathematician after all and so on, and then I made a certain discovery and was shot into international prominence.
As a mathematician when you become a prominent mathematician, in that sense, it doesn't mean that many people know your name. It means that many mathematicians know your name, and there aren't many mathematicians in the world anyway, you know. So it doesn't count very much, but it suddenly released me from feeling that I had to live up to my promise.
You know, I had lived up to my promise. I sort of made a vow to myself. It was so nice not worrying anymore that I thought I'm not going to worry anymore ever again, I was going to study whatever I thought was interesting and not worry whether this was serious enough. And most of the time I've kept to that."
Life, Death and the Monster (John Conway) - Numberphile
At 15 I said ”Welp, not gonna be a music prodigy, that’s okay”
At 25 I was like ”Damn, not a comp sci prodigy either that sucks”
Then at 30 it was ”Well crap, anything I achieve now will just be considered normal”
Pressure is still there but it feels lessened. I’m not gonna be famous for achieving great things before the curve. But I can still gain notoriety for doing cool things at a normal pace.
The key is to let the ego motivate but not crush you, I guess.
I think a lot of us here will recognize this as the exact same sentiment that Feynman expressed pretty early in his career. It seems that while some great people got there by being hell-bent on greatness from early on (Schwarzenegger comes to mind), for others it’s ironically the release of that pressure that unlocks the capacity for greatness.
It's a bit tragic that he is remembered for something he himself wasn't very fond of. From his biography:
"Do you know something? I hate the Life game. I've really realized that I hate the damned Life game. ... I'm scared of the following thing happening. I'm scared of it becoming another one of these, 'John Conway, inventor of the celebrated Game of Life...' I told you, every time I turn to a book, a new math book, I look up the sacred name and it says: 'Conway, Game of life, pages 34 to 38.' And that's roughly all it says. And how can I say it---it's not character assassination, exactly, it's quality assassination. I regard Life as trash, and frankly. I mean, it was a real part of my life to have discovered it and so on. And I don't think it should be totally removed. But it seems to be all that I'm known for, among the general public. ... This was never a big deal as far as we were concerned. This was just a recreation, a game we played. Somehow it became a bit more important later on, or at least it did in the eyes of other people. I never thought of it as very important, I just thought of it as a bit of fun. In fact, in a way, I felt ashamed of it. I don't think it counts in the mathematical community, or at least in the serious mathematical community. I don't think any of my Princeton colleagues think this Life game is of any importance. I don't know. In a way it doesn't count for me."
I listened to the numberphile podcast on it yesterday where Brady interviewed Conway's biographer, and it looks like conway had come around to liking the game of life by the end. The real tragedy is that he never figured out the monster group
> I also recall Conway spending several weeks trying to construct a strange periscope-type device to try to help him visualize four-dimensional objects by giving his eyes vertical parallax in addition to the usual horizontal parallax, although he later told me that the only thing the device made him experience was a headache.
I'm quite curious what exactly Conway was trying to do here. The parallax we use for depth sensing is indeed horizontal in terms of the axes of the image we see, because our two eyes are separated horizontally. With a periscope you might be able to simulate two eyes separated diagonally or vertically. But how does that help you visualize four-dimensional objects?
I think he was aiming to get a simultaneous perspective of an entire 3d object. A bit like taking a 3d viewing perspective of a gD shadow being better at helping understand the 3d shape than a viewing pespective of the same shadow from the 2d plane it rests on.
Perhaps by splitting each eye's vision in two or four. Sure, in a single instant you can only be looking in one pair, but vision has significant hysteresis effects.
I suspect something like this really requires you to grow up with it.
In Conway's game of Life, if you start with a cross as the symbol of death (5x7 grid 00100/00100/11111/00100/00100/00100/00100), you get first a "gravestone", then an egg which is traditional symbol of new life and rebirth. The egg stays around forever, unchanging, perhaps waiting for the right moment (or for you to set one of the two interior pixels).
and if you then fill in the top cell inside the egg you get a (small) exploder that will create four eggs. And if you fill in again the top egg (and only the top egg), you will get a more complex pattern result in a four gliders walking off scene.
Terry always amazes me with his gift of graceful and insightful writing. This post was much more interesting and meaningful to me than 90% of the Conway tribute posts I've come across.
If you're going to be so disparaging of someone with such great contributions and intellect, it'd be nice if you could at least get the facts straight and not muddy everything in your response. It's pretty impossible to comprehend what you're talking about and what's been so "misleading" about Tao's image, especially considering the "herd immunity" strategy (UK) is in many ways the diametric opposite of the "flattening the curve" approach (that of much of the rest of the world).
Wasn't the issue with the UK's strategy that they didn't try to flatten the curve and only isolated old people in order to build up herd immunity in the rest of the population as quickly as possible? I think they abandoned that strategy when they realised that young people can still die from COVID-19.
Flattening the curve is the opposite of the herd immunity approach. And conway died in New Jersey, not the UK.
Clearly, whatever field you are an expert in, it isn't epidemiology, and and its unfortunately not the case that your expertise in whatever has given your opinions in disease control any more weight.
And Sir, you win the Internet for not mentioning GOL there. Kudos well deserved, Conway was a great mathematician (among other 'skills'). He'll be missed.
[+] [-] areoform|6 years ago|reply
"You know in my early twenties, let's say, people always thought that I would, you know, be a great mathematician. And be good at various things and so on. And in my late twenties, I hadn't achieved any of the things that people were predicting, and so I call it my black period. I started to wonder you know whether it was all nonsense. Whether I was not a good mathematician after all and so on, and then I made a certain discovery and was shot into international prominence.
As a mathematician when you become a prominent mathematician, in that sense, it doesn't mean that many people know your name. It means that many mathematicians know your name, and there aren't many mathematicians in the world anyway, you know. So it doesn't count very much, but it suddenly released me from feeling that I had to live up to my promise.
You know, I had lived up to my promise. I sort of made a vow to myself. It was so nice not worrying anymore that I thought I'm not going to worry anymore ever again, I was going to study whatever I thought was interesting and not worry whether this was serious enough. And most of the time I've kept to that."
Life, Death and the Monster (John Conway) - Numberphile
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOCe5HUObD4
I take great solace from these words.
[+] [-] Swizec|6 years ago|reply
At 15 I said ”Welp, not gonna be a music prodigy, that’s okay”
At 25 I was like ”Damn, not a comp sci prodigy either that sucks”
Then at 30 it was ”Well crap, anything I achieve now will just be considered normal”
Pressure is still there but it feels lessened. I’m not gonna be famous for achieving great things before the curve. But I can still gain notoriety for doing cool things at a normal pace.
The key is to let the ego motivate but not crush you, I guess.
[+] [-] dbmueller|6 years ago|reply
(I'm not sure it does)
[+] [-] physicles|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trombonechamp|6 years ago|reply
"Do you know something? I hate the Life game. I've really realized that I hate the damned Life game. ... I'm scared of the following thing happening. I'm scared of it becoming another one of these, 'John Conway, inventor of the celebrated Game of Life...' I told you, every time I turn to a book, a new math book, I look up the sacred name and it says: 'Conway, Game of life, pages 34 to 38.' And that's roughly all it says. And how can I say it---it's not character assassination, exactly, it's quality assassination. I regard Life as trash, and frankly. I mean, it was a real part of my life to have discovered it and so on. And I don't think it should be totally removed. But it seems to be all that I'm known for, among the general public. ... This was never a big deal as far as we were concerned. This was just a recreation, a game we played. Somehow it became a bit more important later on, or at least it did in the eyes of other people. I never thought of it as very important, I just thought of it as a bit of fun. In fact, in a way, I felt ashamed of it. I don't think it counts in the mathematical community, or at least in the serious mathematical community. I don't think any of my Princeton colleagues think this Life game is of any importance. I don't know. In a way it doesn't count for me."
Apparently his favorite work was on the surreal numbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surreal_number
[+] [-] vikramkr|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jimbokun|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] comex|6 years ago|reply
I'm quite curious what exactly Conway was trying to do here. The parallax we use for depth sensing is indeed horizontal in terms of the axes of the image we see, because our two eyes are separated horizontally. With a periscope you might be able to simulate two eyes separated diagonally or vertically. But how does that help you visualize four-dimensional objects?
[+] [-] zamadatix|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Normal_gaussian|6 years ago|reply
I suspect something like this really requires you to grow up with it.
[+] [-] mulberryprism|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] red_admiral|6 years ago|reply
R.I.P. John Conway.
[+] [-] pietroppeter|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gautamcgoel|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ijidak|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nixpulvis|6 years ago|reply
https://github.com/nixpulvis/doomsday
[+] [-] schoen|6 years ago|reply
Your implementation currently misspells "Wednesday".
[+] [-] kzrdude|6 years ago|reply
Here's one interesting overview page, about speed: https://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/Speed
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Alkhwarizmi|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] etrabroline|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] mehrdadn|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcv|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vikramkr|6 years ago|reply
Clearly, whatever field you are an expert in, it isn't epidemiology, and and its unfortunately not the case that your expertise in whatever has given your opinions in disease control any more weight.
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] erex78|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hanche|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raister|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] petters|6 years ago|reply