My name is Mason Porter. I am a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at UCLA. Previously I was Professor of Nonlinear and Complex Systems in the Mathematical Institute at University of Oxford. I was also a Tutorial Fellow of Somerville College.
Friday, February 01, 2008
RIP Herb Keller (1925-2008)
I was browsing through various mathematics society websites and I just noticed a short article that Herb Keller died on January 26th. Herb was one of the pioneers of 20th century applied mathematics (along with his brother Joe) and was one of the people who built the department (Caltech's applied math department) from which I got my undergraduate degrees. I never got to take a class from him. When I was recently back at Caltech as a postdoc, Herb was quite active in attending applied math and physics seminars, and I'm pretty sure I saw him walking around at some point at the recent Joint Math Meetings in San Diego. Here is an article that has some more information. Herb is old enough that I shouldn't be surprised, but it seems like he never stopped being active so I didn't particularly see this coming.
Herb Keller taught 95a? b? the year I took it, joint with someone else. He was a nice guy...I vividly recall the many days he taught in his bike shorts.
ReplyDeleteI think he was dressed like a biker more than 50% of the times I saw him. I never actually had him for a course (nor did I ever actually see him give a seminar).
ReplyDeleteI don't think I ever had him, but I certainly recognize the name... not sure why, but I do. Hmm... Maybe from an issue of Engineering & Science?
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