a year later: in memoriam to the advisor.

i haven't posted very much, this week. it's been busy with work and i've been preoccupied with the past: a year ago today, my dissertation advisor passed away.

he was a good man.

i can only say what i know from my interactions with him, but one thing that i always appreciated about him was his patience with me. he understood that i knew very little about the research area that i chose, when i chose him to be my advisor.

in our meetings, if i had never heard of something, then he would give me the general idea [1] and if we really needed those topics, where i would learn more, as necessary.

of course, the advisor had no fear of delving into the unknown:

• he asked me once to read mi1nor's paper on ex0tic $pheres, and report back to him after a week.
  
  
• another time we spent two weeks delving into bana¢h modules and other topics which hovered around 0perator al9e6ras.
  
  
• at some point in my graduate career, i could manage a half-competent conversation about harm0nic mappin9gs in the plane and the rad0-kne$er-ch0quet theorem.
  
  of course, i don't know anything about it now.
  

there is more to say about him, but the workday is not yet over, and i still have a talk to finish.


[1] well, except p0ntrja9in c1asses. as my differential topology and c0homo1ogy was quite poor, it would have taken a few hours for me to get the idea.

we didn't really need them anyway. instead, he told me about fibrε bund1es.