About Ron Graham

http://www.math.ucsd.edu/~fan/ron/

by vo2maxer • 6 years ago

113 19 6 years ago

math.ucsd.edu

dang• 6 years ago

Related from a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23765035

Thanks, don't know how I missed that. He was kind enough to geek out with me several years back; had I realised he'd had any connection to Mills' Mess we'd have had another topic of conversation.

In a different universe, he might have been a Magister Ludi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Bead_Game

netman21• 6 years ago

Nice to learn he helped create the Mill's Mess juggling technique. I learned how to do that in 1981 at UofM.

ColinWright5• 6 years ago

I talked to Ron about that. For some years the rumour had circulated that he and Steve worked on it, but that Ron actually did the final inventing, but Ron convinced me that while they did work on it together, they only had a "half" version, and it was Steve who put together the "final" version.

gigatexal2• 6 years ago

He seems like an accomplished guy: comfortable in his field and in life to explore other parts of it outside his chosen field. This balance is something I’d like to achieve — to be secure enough in what I do to devote time to roger things.

gigatexal2• 6 years ago

*other

melling• 6 years ago

I saw that he lived to be 84, which seemed like a long life until I saw this other story on HN about Olivia de Havilland living to 104.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23958566

Imagine if Einstein had lived another 30 years into the 1980’s. Richard Feynman was 2 years younger than Olivia de Havilland, but he only lived to be 69.

dddbbb• 6 years ago

There's a woman living in Japan who was born before George Orwell. It's incredible to think that one could be in their 60s and still have half a century left.

joedevon• 6 years ago

As you get older that is less alarming! -said as a 52 year old

chrisco255• 6 years ago

Feynman's good friend Freeman Dyson lived to be 96 and died just a few months ago. He was mentally sharp right through the end.

eru• 6 years ago

Einstein would probably have liked to live longer, but I don't think he did much important science in his later years?

ColinWright5• 6 years ago

I made this comment on an earlier post about Ron, but it seems relevant.

It's via Ron that I have my Erdos number (of the first kind) of 2. He was warm, welcoming, kind, enthusiastic, engaging, and a wonderful person to be with, let alone work with.

I wrote[0] about how I first met him, and while we didn't meet often, it was always a pleasure, and he always greeted me warmly. I'm sad to think I won't see him again. I'll miss him.

[0] https://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/MeetingRonGraham.html?tg26hn

RyJones2• 6 years ago

What is special about 5551?

ColinWright5• 6 years ago

I don't know your background, so I don't know at what level I should pitch my reply.

At the time, as far as we know, no one in the world had done it with the possible exception (in hindsight) of Paul Klimek, Bengt Magnusson, Bruce Tiemann, Mike Day, Adam Chalcraft, and me.

At the time it just wasn't known. When I was at juggling conventions I could torture 7 ball jugglers by getting them to try 441, 5551, and 66661. If you've never done SiteSwaps they feel seriously weird.

If that doesn't answer your question, tell me more about your background, what you know, whether you can juggle, and I'll tailor my answer further.

stepstop• 6 years ago

What is an approachable book on Ramsey's theory for non-mathematicians ?

(Graham's number applies to Ramsey's theory.)

ColinWright5• 6 years ago

There's a quick introduction to it here:

https://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/InfiniteRamseyTheorem.html?tg...

That's just a taste of the ideas. For an entire book there's this:

https://www.amazon.com/Ramsey-Theory-2nd-Ronald-Graham/dp/04...

Many books on Graph Theory will have a section about it.

About Ron Graham

Related Stories