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"14 April 17:00 BST — Mathematician John Conway dies of COVID-19

Renowned British-born mathematician John Conway died aged 82 on 11 April, reportedly of complications arising from COVID-19.

Conway attained a legendary status among maths and science enthusiasts, mostly by designing mathematical games and puzzles. But his work transcended the boundary between recreational and ‘serious’ maths, turning play into research and vice versa. "He’s been known to carry on his person a few decks of cards, dice, ropes, pennies, coat hangers, sometimes a Slinky, maybe a miniature bicycle, all props he deploys to extend his winning imagination," wrote biographer Siobhan Roberts in 2015.

His celebrity status was cemented by Martin Gardner’s popular maths column in the magazine Scientific American, which featured many of Conway’s contributions, beginning in 1970 with his Game of Life, a minimalistic 2D model universe in which ‘organisms’ grow and multiply on the basis of simple rules.

Conway had taught at Princeton University in New Jersey since 1987, and his research spanned several fields of mathematics. In algebra, he studied the ‘monster group’, an object that has an enormous — but not infinite — number of symmetries. With the late British mathematician Simon Norton, he formulated the ‘monstrous moonshine’ conjectures, linking the monster group to an entirely different subject in mathematical analysis."