UCLA's 2019 Mathematics Commencement Ceremony

As you can see from the short video below, this is how we do things in the UCLA mathematics commencement ceremony.

(I am the one in bright red. It's because of my Cornell doctoral degree, but these are almost almost Somerville colors. You can tell the birds from the colors of their feathers.)



Many undergrads from my courses, as well as ones who are doing research projects with me, participated in the ceremony.

Before the ceremony, in the mathematics department lounge, our commencement speaker asked me if I was graduating. He said that I look very young, but I am more than a decade older than he is!

2015 Baseball Hall of Fame Speeches

Yesterday, the new Baseball Hall of Famers (Craig Biggio, John Smoltz, Randy Johnson, and Pedro Martínez) gave their acceptance speeches. Pedro Martínez stole the show and(unsurprisingly) was particularly charismatic, although he did take a brief shot against the Dodgers.

You can watch all of the induction speeches on this website.

I love the pictures of the four new Hall of Famers side-by-side, because Randy Johnson is just about a head or more taller than the other three guys.

The MLB.com Facebook page posted a picture from this weekend with Pedro Martínez and Tommy Lasorda together. Martínez is smiling broadly, and Lasorda has a look on his face that seems to say, "I can't believe we traded Martínez for Delino DeShields!" (I tried to find that picture on a public page, but I wasn't able to find it with a search on Google Images.)