Friday, August 17, 2007

Being An Active Scientist at Age Eighty

Last Wednesday morning I took an hour to go and listen to a talk by Sigurdur Helgason at the University of Iceland. Sigurdur Helgason is one of Iceland's foremost scientists and a mathematician of great distinction, or so I am told. Suffice it to say that the American Mathematical Society have agreed to publish his collected works by some time next year---a honour that is bestowed only to true giants in mathematics.

I had the pleasure to meet Sigurdur Helgason in June 2004, when Anna and I visited Boston and MIT for Kári Ragnarsson's PhD graduation. He struck me as a very lively, curious and laid-back guy, who still enjoyed life, teaching his courses and thinking about maths despite being well over 70.

Sigurdur Helgason's talk kicked off a conference in honour of his 80th birthday. I had no chance of appreciating the technical content of the talk, but it was remarkable to see a 80-year-old man deliver such a well-planned presentation, reporting on some results he seemed to have achieved over the last four years or so. That was a truly awesome thing to witness.

What I found unbecoming was that there were no questions from the audience after the talk. Maybe the tradition in his area of maths is different from the one in TCS, but I would have expected at least the session chair to ask a token question to that great man.

Fortunately, being 80 and famous, he did not seem to be bothered!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

thanks for the pointer, luca. of course, another such great inspiration is Israel Gelfand, who is in his nineties and active! as an example physically closer to me, i would also point to my colleague Jack Minker, who recently turned 80 and still comes in to work and plays tennis!

aravind

Luca Aceto said...

Aravind,

Indeed, I should have mentioned Israel Gelfand in the post. He is just an amazing example of longevity.

I love this quote from his banquet address at the conference for his 90th birthday (transcript here):

The next question was: How can I work at my age? The answer is very simple. I am not a great mathematician. I speak seriously. I am just a student all my life. From the very beginning of my life I was trying to learn. And for example now, when listening to the talks and reading notes of this conference, I discover how much I still do not know and have to learn. Therefore, I am always learning. In this sense I am a student. Never a "Fuehrer".

Thanks for the pointer to Jack Minker!

Luca