A mathematician unlike any other, John Horton Conway (1937–2020) possessed a rock star’s charisma, a polymath’s promiscuous curiosity, and a sly sense of humor.

Conway found fame as a barefoot professor at Cambridge, where he discovered the Conway groups in mathematical symmetry and the aptly named surreal numbers.

He also invented the cult classic Game of Life, a cellular automaton that demonstrates how simplicity generates complexity — and provides an analogy for mathematics and the entire universe.