This week, Caltech has been hosting SimonFest in honor of Barry Simon's 60th birthday.
Tonight we had the conference dinner, which included a roast with several amusing anecdotes. (There are a number of anecdotes on the conference website as well.) Gary Lorden was one of the people who said some words. He highlighted two major vignettes from Simon's Caltech career---one of these was the whole experience teaching the new math 1a in fall 1996 when the core was changed. I was a TA for that course and Wren was was a student in it. (Wren: I assume you didn't skip math 1; I don't actually remember any incidents involving you. I'm only going by your class year.) Of course, several of the things that Lorden said were familiar to me, as I know that class wrought some pain on the students and on the TAs. I spent _waaaaay_ more time in my TA duties that term than is normal and the inaugural term of the half-calculus [Barry Simon-style] and half-probability core caused a non-trivial amount of grief. (I hasten to add, however, that while Simon is not the optimal choice to teach core courses---as several of you know quite well---he is extremely good for graduate-level courses. I had him for math 110a and felt that he did an extremely good job.) The story that I told for the conference web page relates to that. (Gazebo: The story was not the one about a certain Simpson's Rule proof, a "tradition" that began for that particular class.)
Here's an amusing story from tonight: There was a prof from University of Arizona sitting next to me at my table. He looked at my name tag and said something along the lines of, "I've encountered your name before. Did you apply for a job at University of Arizona?" Ummm, yeah.... (Maybe that means my application was good enough for them to look seriously at it...) Anyway, I was amused.
One thing I've learned throughout my still-brief applied math career (with some overlap in mathematical physics) is just how huge a name Simon is in mathematical physics. (These galas can, in principle, be done for any scientist but they are far more often done for people with big names. Does anybody happen to know why age 60 seems to be the traditional age to do this [at least in math and physics]? I've never gotten a good answer to this. I know about the whole idea of having been around long enough, but why is it usually 60 versus some other age at which one has been around enough?) While I knew about Nobel Laureates and the huge reknown of a few other people while I was at Tech, only later did I realize that a bloody enormous fraction of Tech professors seem to have been recognized at an astoudingly high level (or ultimately will be, in the case of the younger ones). Simon has over 300 research articles, another close to 50 review articles, and 14 research monographs. This kind of output is almost unheard of for a mathematician! (In other fields, the paper volume gets measured quite differently.) I am more prolific (in pace; obviously not in volume) than most applied math sorts (who are already much more prolific than most pure math and mathematical physics sorts!), and I'm on a pace to get something like 150-200 research papers (and no books) if my publication rate remains constant and I have a comprably long career. And we're talking about someone who has numerous extremely influential papers. (I should note that I know very well that my place in the world does not include approaching that kind of combination of volume and far-reaching mathematical influence.)
Much of this stuff going on at this conference revolves around spectral theory (literally, the study of eigenvalues---although the original name, and most of the applications, comes from how they arise in physics [especially quantum mechanics]). In fact, there are some problems I am studying (and some I am just starting to think about) that could use some insights from experts in spectral theory, so I'm hoping to pick some people's brains at this conference. (I haven't managed to do that yet, but I have a couple meetings tomorrow.)
That's about it for my thoughts right now.
Actually, Mason, I skipped Math1abc, and 2b.
ReplyDeleteAh, so I apparently have an extremely good reason for not remembering any incidents involving you.
ReplyDeleteWell, there was reportedly the incident in class when who ever was teaching that day, I can't specifically remember if it was Barry, talked about the student whose calculus entry exam was so bad they thought they'd put them in .9, and then that student had aced the multi-variable and linear algebra sections and appended a note that it had been 3 years since AP calc BC.
ReplyDeleteThat was me.
But I hope no one remembers that.
That wasn't brought up.
ReplyDeleteIn my case, I did well enough to get out of math 1 and aced the first half of the 2b test but screwed up the second. Why did I screw up the integration half? That was because I made a dumb mistake in the limits of integration in the beginning and the errors propagation. So Caltech decided I should take math 2 (actually, they originally put me in 1b but I spent the weekend between frosh camp and the start of classes retaking the test to pass out of 1b and 1c and I was able to do well enough for them to let me do it, though they had reservations). I needed math 2a, having not had linear algebra before. I did not need math 2b, although they wouldn't listen when it came to the exam. Thus, I decided I wouldn't miss any points in math 2b, and thankfully I fulfilled my vow. As it turn out, they didn't have time to finish up the stuff (Stokes theorem and whatnot) from the second half of the placement exam, so we rushed through the rest of that in the first week of math 2c before we got to probability. (Back when there was a math 2c...) So much for making me take the class I didn't need. Of course, there was some pleasure involved in proving them wrong. :)
I didn't need 2a -- that was the third round of linear algebra for me, but because I said I hadn't had Bessel functions, I was forced to take it. We promptly didn't cover Bessel equations, and I didn't get taught them until, oh either phys12 or 98 or the excellent seismology class junior year. 2c, which I took the last year it was offered was sheer and utter torture. *wince*
ReplyDeleteBessel functions are never in 2a and have pretty much always been the province of the applied mathematicians and physicists. (They do indeed typically get taught in 95.)
ReplyDeleteAlso, if Bessel functions were going to be in the core, they'd be in the ode part. (Also, one can't appreciate them without having first had complex variables, so that's really quite odd.)