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.
