He visited Australia several times in the 90's and I remember seeing him talk about wallpaper groups back then. One time he was explaining orbifolds [1] by folding up a piece of paper, and he somehow made a cone shape, and it somehow ended up on his head, and then he proceeded to march around like a crazy guy. It was hilarious.
In 2008 I was living in New York city and Conway gave a series of lectures at Princeton on quantum physics and the "free will" theorem [2]. I was able to take the train down to Princeton to see a couple of them, and it was awesome. He was a bit shaky at first because he had just had a health scare, but he soon got into the swing of things.
I would highly recommend the biography: "Genius At Play: The Curious Mind of John Horton Conway" by Siobhan Rob. It is a lot of fun!
In 2008 I was living in New York city and Conway gave a series of lectures at Princeton on quantum physics and the "free will" theorem [2]. I was able to take the train down to Princeton to see a couple of them, and it was awesome. He was a bit shaky at first because he had just had a health scare, but he soon got into the swing of things.
I would highly recommend the biography: "Genius At Play: The Curious Mind of John Horton Conway" by Siobhan Rob. It is a lot of fun!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbifold_notation [2] https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0604079