Read recently that the mathematician John Conway had passed away.  I spent lots of time at a certain point in my life playing his game of “life“.  Not the board game, but the cellular automata simulation.  One of these simple things that gets complex (and interesting) quickly.  The cause of death was not disclosed in the first article I read after his passing, but Scientific American, where he had a long professional relationship with Martin Gardner, states his cause of death as COVID-19.

Remembering Mathematical Magician John Conway

His creative and influential ideas spilled over into quantum physics, philosophy and computer science