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Wednesday, June 09, 2004
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There are times when one is brought up short by a wondrous intersection of two sets that one would think are absolutely, totally, and completely mutually exclusive.
Each morning, I get my coffee at the Title Wave Kaladi. The baristas are all young, fun, hip, outgoing, and make great espresso. It's a great atmosphere and there's a real mix of clientele - professionals, Gen X and Y hipsters, police officers, etc. On Wednesday mornings, a small group of older folks also gather to meet and chat.
This morning, as I walked in to get my coffee, Trevor (my favorite barista), greeted me with a "Whatup Steph?" At the same time, I saw one of our old dear family friends, George, who is a member of the Wednesday morning chat session.
George is in his 90's and is a survivor of Kristallnacht. As Trevor whatup'd me, I was looking at George. And I was just so struck by the incongruence and the congruence. Whatup and Kristallnacht? Together?
Kristallnacht was an seminal event of the Twentieth Century. Pure evil unleashed. And yet here was George - a survivor of that evil - at Kaladi brothers getting his short latte. And here was Trevor - who is probably all of 22 - serving George his latte. Trevor is headed down the road of the 21st century. George traveled down one of the most horrific roads of the 20th century.
What a place and time we live in. Where these two people can cross paths.
7:13:21 PM 
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This week, a Purdue University Mathematician posted his proof for the Reimann hypothesis - one of the great unsolved problems in mathematics.
As CNET states:
The origins of the hypothesis date back to 1859, when mathematician Bernhard Riemann came up with a theory about how prime numbers were distributed, but he died in 1866, before he could conclusively prove it.
On a lark, when I saw that the published paper was only 23 pages long, I decided to take a peek at it. Wow - what a paper. The first 4 pages are a fascinating review of the past 400 years of number theory. Then, there is a, not inmodest, review of the author's credentials - sort of a life history starting with WWII and a very mathematical boyhood.
I finally started to get completely lost at about page 6. But, when multiple sentences of only text would appear, I could dip in and check out the action. Lots of stuff about "Hilbert Spaces," "Critical Strips", and "Zeros". Finally on page 23, the author wraps up the proof and then proposes what he would do with the $1 million prize - restore a French Chateau for use as a mathematical research institute. Sort of a numerical Shangra La....
6:35:21 PM
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© Copyright 2005 Stephanie A. Kesler.
Last update: 3/5/2005; 8:44:15 PM.
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