Supposedly, the mathematician was Robert Thomason, and this incident is described by Michael Harris in this article: http://www.institut.math.jussieu.fr/~harris/androids.pdf At 08:00 AM 8/14/2012, Henry Baker wrote:
I heard recently a (possibly apocryphal) story about a mathematician who gave co-authorship on a math paper to a dead (non-mathematician) friend. Apparently the friend came to him in a dream & helped him get to the answer.
Perhaps someone here knows more about this story?
At 07:51 PM 8/13/2012, you wrote:
I actually dreamed about Herb a few months ago. In my dream, I told him about some recent mathematical discovery of mine (I no longer remember what) that I thought he'd like. He replied that, being dead, he no longer found math interesting.