town Born in
Wexford, he received his early education in
St Peter's College, Wexford and proceeded to enter old University College, Dublin in 1892. He received his BA degree from the
Royal University of Ireland in 1896 with honours in
Latin, English,
Mathematics and
Natural Philosophy. In 1897, he received his MA degree with highest honours in mathematics and proceeded to
Corpus Christi College, Oxford, becoming University Scholar there in 1898, and studying under
Augustus Love. One of Conway's students was
Éamon de Valera, whom he introduced to Hamilton's
quaternions. Conway's earliest publications, dating back to 1903, were on the electromagnetic theory. He is remembered for his application of
biquaternion algebra to the
special theory of relativity, and in 1915 published a 43-page tract "Relativity" in Edinburgh. He published an article in 1911, and in 1912 asserted priority over
Ludwik Silberstein, who also applied biquaternions to relativity. This claim was backed up by
George Temple in his book
100 Years of Mathematics. In 1947 Conway put quaternions to use with rotations in hyperbolic space. The next year he published
quantum mechanics applications which were referred to in a PhD thesis by
J. Lambek in 1950. In 1918, he was the
Irish Parliamentary Party candidate in
South Londonderry and in the
National University, coming second in both. Arthur Conway continued his scholarship in the fields of mathematics and theoretical physics, and made a special study of
William Rowan Hamilton. With
J. L. Synge, he edited the first volume of Hamilton's mathematical papers and with A. J. McConnell he edited the second volume of Hamilton's mathematical papers. Conway was also active in college life, being appointed
Registrar, a position he occupied until his election as president in 1940. He retired in 1947 from the presidency of UCD. In 1953, some of his writings were edited by J. McConnell for publication by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. He was an Invited Speaker of the
ICM in Toronto in 1924, in 1932 in Zurich, and in 1936 in Oslo. He was elected President of the
Royal Irish Academy from 1937 to 1940. In October 1975, to mark the centenary of his birth, UCD hosted the AC Conway Memorial Mathematical Symposium. Speakers included
Roger Penrose,
Ian Sneddon, and
William B. Bonnor. In his obituary,
E.T. Whittaker referred to Conway as the "most distinguished Irish Catholic man of science of his generation." ==Books==