Conway elected to Cambridge Philosophical Society

John Conway, the John von Neumann Professor in Applied and Computational Mathematics at Princeton, has been inducted into the Cambridge Philosophical Society as an honorary fellow.

He delivered the prize lecture, "The Free Will Theorem," to an audience of more than 500 on Nov. 9 at the University of Cambridge.

A graduate of Cambridge, Conway taught there for 25 years before joining the Princeton faculty in 1987. His fascination with games and puzzles has led him to important discoveries in areas of mathematics from number theory to geometry. He also is well known as the inventor of the Game of Life, in which checker-like objects replicate themselves and form patterns on a grid.

The Cambridge Philosophical Society, founded in 1819 "for the purpose of promoting scientific inquiry," includes honorary members and fellows. A fellow must be recommended in writing by three or more fellows; approved candidates are elected at open meetings of the society.