John Horton Conway, mathematician and creator of The Game of Life, has died at the age of 82 from complications of COVID-19. Conway had been the John von Neumann Professor of Applied and Computational Mathematics from 1987 to 2013, when he was named professor emeritus.

Conway's "Game of Life," first published in 1970, is a famous cellular automaton. The user places a series of cells on a grid, which interact according to four rules. As the simulation progresses, the interaction of the cells becomes more complex, showing how complexity can arise from simple instructions. A version of the Game of Life can be played in your browser here.

Although Conway is generally best known for Game of Life, he has also contributed to many areas of mathematics, including theoretical physics, algebra, and number theory. According to Princeton University, he was noted for his implication that "If humans have free will, then subatomic particles such as atoms and electrons have free will as well."

Born in Liverpool, England, in 1937, Conway received his Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1964 and remained there until moving to Princeton University, where he died on April 11 in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

A Princeton University employee left a tribute to Conway on this blog.