Day Lily Time

And a fiery crimson coneflower

John Nash, Mathematician

Reading about the recent death of John F. Nash and his wife Alicia led to numerous revelations for me.  Yes, I saw "A Beautiful Mind."  I spent the following days of discussion with my spouse attempting to explain to her what we saw.  Blind leading the blind?  Perhaps.

John Nash who would want to be remembered as a mathematician will in all likelihood be as much if not more remembered as an economist.  It was in the field of economics in which he won the Nobel Prize.  Economists in large measure believe Nash's contributions to the field are at the minimum as important as were those of Adam Smith.

Everyone who has read the book A Beautiful Mind or who saw the cinematic production knows that Nash was brilliant almost beyond the comprehension of most people and moreover they know that he was a life-long sufferer of schizophrenia.  I shall make no attempt to detail his battle  It is to be noted that he and his wife left behind a son John, Jr. who holds a Ph.D. in his own right and who also suffers from schizophrenia.  It was one of his mother's major worries: What will become of Johnny when we are gone?

But one of the more sobering statistics I garnered in my reading was this.  Twenty-five percent of all Americans suffer from some form of mental illness.

The next time you are in a room with three other people look around.

In addition to John, Jr., Dr. Nash is also survived by another son, John Stier.

John Forbes Nash, Jr.  1928 - 2015
Alicia Lopez-Harrison Nash 1933 - 2015
RIP

Pressure #T

Mathematics: “A subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true” (Bertrand Russell)  Not that I believe Russell ever knew what he was talking about.  But perhaps that is just me.

Brushed some sticky new cobwebs from my hair and forehead as I passed through the attic door.

It seems I had driven down Woodstock, turned up Westmoreland, wheeled into the Foster-Scholz parking lot. Now I am walking past those residence halls, passing the twin Doug firs on my right.  My copy of my thesis is clutched in my left hand and the butterflies are swarming in my stomach.  At the end of the next hour, my degree will be either confirmed or denied.

My footsteps on the stone echoed throughout the near-empty old edifice as I neared the room in which I was to defend my thesis, or, as I thought of it, to be interrogated.  At the doorway of room 106, stood my thesis advisor, Dr. Dennehy.  I had taken only one class under Tom Dennehy, but he had been a rock throughout the time of my preparation for this moment.  He shook my hand and  said, "Don't forget that I am in your corner, and I know you are ready.  They are ready for us, and I will make the introductions after which the Chair will be in charge."

Dr. D said, "This is our candidate.  Be as gentle as possible."  A bit of humor in an attempt to reduce the tension.  "Doctor Hunt, I believe you know Dr. Hunt, Dr. Chrestenson, whom you also know; and this is Dr. Roberts."

My head starts to spin and black spots swirl in front of my eyes.  Dr. Roberts?  The legendary Dr. Roberts about whom stories swirl across campus like a monsoon over Formosa?  Joe Roberts had been absent from campus during my time there.  A sabbatical, a guest lectureship at Gottingen, or whichever of the circumstances speculated upon happened to be the correct one, if any of them were.

"And this is Dr. Williams.  She will be chairing this session. He is all yours, Dr. Williams."

Eee-yikes!

The next hour could have been days.  Or weeks.  For all sense of time folded into one eternal enclosure of my brain in a pressure cooker, steam up!  And I am supposed to be able to think clearly enough to make a cogent summary of where I started and where I went with this thing.  I am supposed to be able to intelligently answer the questions of these mathematicians.

And I did, or at least I guess I did, for after the most excruciating five minutes of banishment to the hallway, Dr.  Dennehy called me back into the room, Dr. Williams stood and extended her hand. "Congratulations, vanilla," smile beaming across her visage, "This committee finds your work meets the required standards, and your presentation here today is commendable."

The end.

2√2b²

Notes to the experience
1.  Thomas P. Dennehy taught the introductory course to the program.  This extremely pleasant man seemed truly to want everyone to succeed.  Unfortunately, the washout rate following his class was about fifty percent.  Not his fault. 
2.  Burrowes Hunt was known to all as "Buzz."  He wrote a textbook creatively entitled Calculus and Linear Algebra.
He had just received the galley proofs from the publisher.  He arranged to get enough copies for everyone in his class.  It was our textbook, and he got the free services of a dozen readers to help him make the final edit.  I still have my tattered paper-bound copy, and you may get one, too, if you wish.  Amazon has a dozen or so copies available.
3.  Hugh Chrestenson taught the non-Euclidean geometry course.  I did really well in that class.  Yes, that is a boast. And I have probably forgotten 97.6% of what I learned. And that is a fact.
4.  Joe Roberts was legendary on that campus and his career there ultimately spanned more than fifty years.  An oft-told story was that his doctoral dissertation required but half-page.  I suppose that might have been embellished to state that it was originally written on the back of an envelope, but then, A. Lincoln had proprietary rights to that one.