[johnfn]

I watched a class (a single 2 hour lecture I believe) taught by Conway at Mathcamp. It was about, believe it or not, the simple game of dots-and-boxes - except that Conway had attacked it with a lot of math and derived some strategies for winning. He was indeed a great lecturer, even though he was quite old.

The most memorable part was right at the beginning where Conway asked someone to play a 4x4 grid of dots and boxes with him 10 times in a row. As I remember, Conway won 9 times in a row. That got all of our attention! :)

[mrkgnao]

I was a Mathcamper this year. One of the most common things people said to me when I mentioned that I was a first-timer was that 2015 was the last year Conway attended, and how sad it was that I'd miss his lectures and general presence around camp. :(

There's this wonderful thing (invented by Conway) they do where, in a noisy crowded assembly, one person raises their hand and stops making any sound. Anyone who notices them raises their hand and stops talking. It works extremeley well (and really quickly!), and I suspect it was Conway's general frailty that led him to come up with this.

[michaelcampbell]

The Boy Scouts have been doing this for quite a long time - do you have any citations of Conway's having invented this?

[mrkgnao]

Maybe he just introduced it to Mathcamp? We teenagers can be a bit quick to make claims sometimes :)