Surreal Mathematician

Review: Genius at Play by Siobhan Roberts

When I’m drowning in the desire to read “something different” but have no idea what the subject might be, I go to Books Upstairs on D’Olier Street.  Last week they didn’t disappoint me when I stumbled upon a biography of one of my great heroes, John Horton Conway, which I hadn’t known existed.

I’ll accept that unless your NQ¹ is fairly high, you have possibly never even heard of JHC but I’m here to tell you that you’re all the poorer for this. He is perhaps the most quirky, playful and creative professor of mathematics to ever to grace the halls of Cambridge and Princeton.

Alert!!!     Don’t switch off

For “mathematics” read “GAMES”

So how would an ordinary mortal come to hear of him?  Well he sprang to prominence when Scientific American’s equally nerd-adored Martin Gardiner published article after article describing his Game of Life (play it here); what Conway calls a zero-player game. The biography reveals that although he revels in the fame it brought, he also bemoans how it has cast a deep shadow over his other accomplishments.

Like Einstein in 1905, he had his annus mirabilis in 1969 inventing ‘Life’, describing the Monster Group (… don’t go there …) and inventing what I think he will eventually be best remembered for: the Surreal Number which I like to call 𝕊.  Don’t get me going on them; I won’t stop.

So why am I bothering to write this up and attract your witty rejoinders?  Because this is laugh-out-loud biography. Conway is a (deliberately) larger than life man, who claims never to have worked a day in his life and he must be, by far, the most entertaining educator ever. It’s so interesting to see also the complete (artistic!) freedom that academia awards to someone like him to “waste” countless hours playing and fooling-around in, no doubt, the confident belief that genius has its own path to follow.

I read this 400-page biography in 3 days; it’s un-put-downable. This is a book about the full expression of creativity and his biographer adopts his quirkiness in her presentation of him. To her credit, she shows him warts and all but at the end, warts aside, I still revere him!

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^{1. Nerd Quotient↩}

Cold War Aftermath

Review: The Despot’s Accomplice by Brian Klaus

From Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe, the author cross-crosses the planet discussing democracy and the West’s generally well-intentioned, often ham-fisted attempts to promote it. Indeed he’s not at all afraid to point out where economic pragmatism causes the West to support regimes (e.g. Saudi Arabia) totally at odds with democracy.

The examples are diverse and very contemporary (published 2016) and extremely readable, which was a relief when dipping into a subject I don’t usually address.

The book offers 10 recipes for improving the promotion of democracy ranging from a few easy ones to some (e.g. golden parachutes for retiring despots) that are morally difficult to stomach but exceedingly well defended. The author is clearly both a moral philosopher and a pragmatist.

The anecdote about Burkino Faso (recipe 10) alone is worth the book.

I learned so much. I anticipate that members of the Asynchronists will fight for their turn to read this :-).

Summer Roundup

Our little group assembled again this morning for the “indoor” season.  Full attendance!! We must have nothing else to do with our time. 😉

This was our first ‘dry’ meeting with Eugene providing coffee and pastries instead of alcohol.  Very Nice!

This summer, Michael read books he stumbled on at random with less than auspicious results although Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth pleased.  Don dipped into books from 20+ years ago, finding the novels generally enjoyable (especially Alain Robbe-Grillet’s Djinn), but the non-fiction a bit dated. David took a break from reading, managing about 20 pages. Tony discovered Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s series. Richard enjoyed the feel of the wind in his hair (through Nick Hunt’s: Where the Wild Winds Are).  Brendan read about a journalist’s experience in Iraq (title?). Time constraints meant that Eugene didn’t have anything like the time its author had to tell us about Mein Kampf.

Naturally, Brexit had its usual coverage.

Theme for November meeting will be:

Lonely Books: books that somehow made it to our bookshelves to find nothing else quite like them for company; that is, subjects we don’t usually venture into.

A Christmas/New Year lunch will be arranged in January.