My next door neighbor is Leonard Susskind, who is the current Felix Bloch Professor of Physics at Stanford. So if Bloch didn't murder three people I guess we can throttle back our "Neighborhood Watch" patrols Susskind is currently teaching a course on String Theory at Stanford. Last week, someone asked him about the fine structure constant 137.035999777... and whether the approximations such as S Plouffe's 96(e^(1/2) + 2^(1/3))^(1/3) say anything about the underlying physics. "The significance of that number, the fine structure constant, is only dimly understood," he said. Thane Plambeck 650 321 4884 office 650 323 4928 fax http://www.qxmail.com/home.htm ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fred W. Helenius" <fredh@ix.netcom.com> To: "math-fun" <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2003 9:27 AM Subject: Re: [math-fun] mathematical criminals
At 12:19 AM 4/11/03, Dan Asimov wrote:
Also Felix Bloch, most known for his work in complex variables, who shot and killed three people. Can't recall whether he was put in jail or a mental institution, but I think he remained incarcerated for the rest of his life.)
Dan means Andre' Bloch, who did all of his mathematical work after being institutionalized. (Felix Bloch was a Nobel physicist.)
A criminal yet to be mentioned is Valery Fabrikant, who killed four colleagues in 1992. Although he was a professor of mechanical engineering, his papers (which he continues to publish from prison) seem to be oriented toward the applied math side of the field. For example, "Exact solution of the biharmonic integral equation and its applications" is one of his many papers cited in Math. Reviews.
Some sources on Bloch: http://mathforum.org/epigone/historia_matematica/smerdjahpon
Long essay on Fabrikant: http://www.grubstreetbooks.ca/essays/fabrikant.html
-- Fred W. Helenius <fredh@ix.netcom.com>
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