My name is Mason Porter. I am a Professor in Nordita (Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics) and am Professor in Complex Systems in the Department of Mathematics at Stockholm University. Previously, I was a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at UCLA. Before that, 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. I am still a Senior Research Fellow of Somerville College.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
A Mathematical Name
Another one of my former students just became a father. As he writes, Kallisti Lemma [last name] was born at 11:41 PM CST on December 6, 2012 weighing in at 9 lbs 5 oz and 22 inches long.
Notice the middle name. It compelled me include the following sentence in my response: If/when Kallisti gets a younger sibling, presumably the middle name is going
to be "Theorem"? Apparently, other people have suggested names like "Corolloary" and "Proposition" for future siblings.
The story behind the name is very cool. The mathematics connection is there and that was one reason why my former student really liked it, but it started from a honeymoon in Greece, the original name of Santorini being Kallisti (which means "the loveliest"), and the name "Lemma" (which in Greek means "something received, such as a gift") from a section on antiquated names from a book of names. (My former student's name apparently likes antiquated names.)
Anyway, I think this is extremely cool!
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