"John Horton Conway is a cross between
Archimedes, Mick Jagger and Salvador Dalí."
— The Guardian paraphrasing Siobhan Roberts,
John Horton Conway and his Leech lattice doodle
in The Guardian . Photo: Hollandse Hoogte/Eyevine.
. . . .
"In junior school, one of Conway’s teachers had nicknamed him 'Mary'.
He was a delicate, effeminate creature. Being Mary made his life
absolute hell until he moved on to secondary school, at Liverpool’s
Holt High School for Boys. Soon after term began, the headmaster
called each boy into his office and asked what he planned to do with
his life. John said he wanted to read mathematics at Cambridge.
Instead of 'Mary' he became known as 'The Prof'. These nicknames
confirmed Conway as a terribly introverted adolescent, painfully aware
of his own suffering." — Siobhan Roberts, loc. cit.
From the previous post —
See as well this journal on the above Guardian date —
