News Release

JOHN H. CONWAY RECEIVES
AMS STEELE PRIZE

Contact at AMS: Dr. John H. Ewing, AMS Executive Director
e-mail: jhe@ams.org
telephone: 401-455-4100
fax: 401-331-3842

January 20, 2000

PROVIDENCE, RI --- John H. Conway of Princeton University has won the 2000 Leroy P. Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition. Presented by the American Mathematical Society, the Steele Prize is one of the highest distinctions in mathematics. The prize will be awarded at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Washington, DC on January 20, 2000.

According to the prize citation, Conway is receiving the prize "in recognition of his many expository contributions in automata, the theory of games, lattices, coding theory, group theory, and quadratic forms. He has a rare gift for naming mathematical objects, and for inventing useful mathematical notations. His joy in mathematics is clearly evident in all that he writes."

Conway is the author or co-author of at least eight different books, and of many expository articles which have had substantial impact not just on research mathematicians but on mathematical amateurs as well.

Founded in 1888 to further mathematical research and scholarship, the 30,000-member American Mathematical Society fulfills its mission through programs and services that promote mathematical research and its uses, strengthen mathematical education, and foster awareness and appreciation of mathematics and its connections to other disciplines and to everyday life.