Ryan Hayward

Computing scientist at the University of Alberta and one of the leading academic researchers on the game of Hex, having built a standing Hex research group there and co-authored the field's standard survey, "Hex and Combinatorics" (2006). In this vault he matters twice over: he supervised Philip Henderson's 2010 PhD dissertation on Hex — the Tier 2 scholarly secondary this vault uses to corroborate Nash's own account of his Hex proof — and he personally interviewed Nash by telephone in December 1999, together with Jack van Rijswijck, making him one of the few people to have questioned Nash directly about his Hex reasoning. That interview is cited in Henderson's bibliography but has not itself been located or read by this vault.

References

• claim-nash-1952-rand-report-confirms-hex-proof-non-constructive · claim-hex-winner-determination-is-pspace-complete
• Capture: 10-inbox/raw/2026-08-21-verify-nashs-hex-strategy-stealing-proof-non-constructive.md

Updates

• 2026-08-22: Hayward's own research-group page and CMPUT 396 course notes — his own venues, not just work he supervised — independently restate the Piet Hein/Nash Hex priority and place the 1948 Princeton reintroduction of Hex within a circle including Gale, Milnor, and Enderton. (claim-nash-1952-princeton-circle-includes-gale-milnor-enderton)