vy
Jones Murphy@vy I never met Norbert Wiener, but I did go past his office at MIT one time. It features in the movie "Good Will Hunting", where there's an epic nerd moment in front of that office with his nameplate still there. I did meet Norbert Wiener's student Claude Shannon, founder of information theory. I met Shannon at the World Computer Chess Championship in 1989. I was part of the Caltech team, as a grad student in physics there at the time.
@vy Norbert Weiner is the undisputed grandfather of cyberspace. I highly recommend the 2 volumes of his autobiography: "Ex-Prodigy" and "I Am A Mathematician". That first volume contains a lot of amazing info on Jewish life in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
@jonesmurphy i love the story about his family moving
@vy that story is one of my favorites. Also, there's a story that he ran into a friend on MIT's campus and started chatting. At the end of the convo he asked: "Which way was I going when we met?" Upon being told, he said "Oh, good. Then I must have already had lunch."
@jonesmurphy The poor wife.
@jonesmurphy a mathematician in nyc once told me a colleague’s wife put 2 subway tokens in one coat pocket and lunch in a pocket on the other side, as if the colleague was a child. Easier to focus on your work i guess