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Genius at Play review


Genius at Play by Siobhan Roberts is a biography revolving around the life and works of John Conway, most notoriously (much to his distaste) the creator of The Game of Life (the computer game, not the board game!). The structure of the book keeps your attention throughout as it switches between the author narrating pieces of Conway’s life according to different acquaintances’ recounting, interviewing Conway about different memories (of the few he seems to have), and reviewing pieces of Conway’s work. Jumping from works ranging from knot theory to a proof of the free will of humanity, Siobhan highlights how Conway’s heavy focus on games and the mathematics behind them seemed to fuel his work. In what seems to be a strange turn for most of the famous mathematicians, much of Conway’s work and understanding of mathematics seems to stem from him having a physical grasp of what he is working with (as demonstrated by his parallax contraption to view the world in the 4th dimension… and many other experimentations outlined in the book). Although it requires a finer application of focus in order to make sense of some of the mathematics outlined, this book is an excellent reminder that you don’t need to follow the stereotypes of mathematicians in order to be a genius.

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