Math Trivia

The following are the random facts I found funny/exciting, and since I imagine the majority of you who are reading this blog are mathematicians, I wanted to share these with you.

1. If you have taken any enumeration class, you have probably heard of the results obtained by Robinson-Schensted. If you haven't, go look them up - they're pretty cool. Craige Schensted is an interesting character, though. In 1999, he decided that he was worried about the Y2K, so he changed his name to Ea Ea. Don't ask me why. He also quit math, and now he designs video games. When I first heard this, I wasn't sure if I should believe it, so I asked Wikipedia. Also, here is his website. Apparently he has been asked to speak in combinatorics seminars since then, but he has been ignoring these requests. Kind of reminds me of Grothendieck. In any case, I think I want to play his games at some point.

2. I've vaguely heard of this one before - there is this "Snake lemma" in algebraic topology, and everyone has to prove it at least once in their lifetime, because, apparently it's just that important. Or the professors are too lazy to go through it themselves. I had to do it, and I know that if I ever get to teach algebraic topology, it's going to be the first question in my homework assignment. But the actors did pretty well here: I was impressed.

3. Have you heard of the Mayer-Vietoris sequence? It turns out that Leopold Vietoris was famous for more than just the sequence - he was born in 1891, and he died in 2002. There is even a word for people like him - supercentenarian (for those of age 110+). He is the 81th oldest man ever to have lived. There is more, though. His wife also lived to be a 100-year-old. They are the 7th oldest couple ever.

Happy thanksgiving everyone!

Credits for these trivia go to Professors Richard Stanley and Haynes Miller of MIT, by the way.