Richard Kenneth Guy, 1916–2020

Abstract

Richard Guy was born in Nuneaton on 30 September 1916 to Augusta Adeline Tanner and William Alexander Charles Guy, both school teachers, his father having survived the disastrous Gallipoli campaign. He was a border at Warwick School, where he was put in classes well above his age group. Richard's mathematical talent was apparent from an early age and he was encouraged by his teacher Cyril Caton to study beyond the school syllabus. When 17, he purchased, and was fascinated by, Dickson's History of the Theory of Numbers 〈2〉, and he was left in no doubt that mathematics would be central to his life. Obtaining three scholarships, he went up to Gonville and Caius, Cambridge in 1935 to read Mathematics, and found that he was already familiar with all the first-year material. He recalls that later courses by Albert Ingham and Charles Burkill on number theory and analysis were particularly inspiring. However, he spent a considerable time playing chess and bridge and composing chess problems, with the consequence that he graduated in 1938 with only a secondclass degree, but also perhaps having fueled his lifetime interest in game theory.Michael Thirian, a couple of years below Richard at Warwick School, also won a scholarship to Gonville and Caius, and through him Richard met his sister, Louise Thirian. Louise and Michael were close siblings, for example in their teens they went on a three-week hiking trip in the Swiss Alps, covering up to 25 miles a day, and living very frugally. Louise took a teaching diploma at a Domestic Science College in Leicester; whilst there she invited Richard to a college dance, and this was soon followed by a trip together to the Lake District, where Richard had enjoyed walking holidays with his family. Richard and Louise became engaged in November 1939, and they married in December 1940.Meanwhile, against the advice of his parents, Richard decided to become a teacher. He gained a teaching diploma at the University of Birmingham, and in 1939 took up a mathematics post at Stockport Grammar School. He was not called up until 1941 when he was commissioned as a flight lieutenant in the meteorological branch of the RAF, and was posted first in Scotland, then Iceland, and finally Bermuda. Whilst in Iceland he took up snow and ice climbing, and skiing, which became lifelong pastimes.