Monday, March 08, 2004
Awesome Dad
I was at my dad's office on campus over winter break and, while perusing his bookshelves, picked up a 60's-era text on set theory lingering from his old PhD Math days (we're talking around the time of the controversial Robert Lee Moore ousting, when UT-Math was in the final throes of applied mathematics under its then-chair William T. Guy and poised on the threshold of Pure Math, of which my dad was an aspiring practitioner). As I lounged in a chair, flipping through the book, my dad sat at his PC, working, I believe, on some atmospheric chemistry simulation. It was a nice father-son moment, I thought, and suddenly looked up mid-book to ask what the hell a "ring" was.
Without much deliberation at all, my dad got up from his chair, walked over to his wall-length chalkboard, erased a small portion of real estate, and then outlined the basic principles and features of set-theoretical rings. It was kinda cool, this automatic, impromptu lecture; and even though I didn't really grasp all of it, I felt a sudden deep love and appreciation for my father. It was really something.
Anyway, after he was done a few minutes later (I think he saw my eyes glazing over a bit), my dad quietly put the chalk down, slowly rubbed his hands against one another, and, without looking up, just said humbly "I haven't thought about that stuff in over 35 years. God."
The room was dead silent. We both teetered on the verge of losing it, each in our own way: my dad, likely wondering about the life he gave up on when he abandoned Set Theory for the young, growing field of environmental engineering; and myself, thinking how amazingly three-dimensionally brilliant my dad is.
Wow.
posted 1:27 AM
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