On Mon, 9 May 2005 13:11:28 -0400, Reef Fish
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>La Poisson.
>
>One who paid his dues w*rking 18 hours a day (on 7 1/2-hr pay;  even
>geniuses are 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration) when young, 8-12
>hour-days on 7 1/2 -hr pay when old;  and Erdos was working
>19-hour days everyday on virtually no pay.  :-)  But Erdos had his
>unlimited supply of amphetamines (Bezedrine) from his manager/friend
>Ron Grahams, former head of Bell Lab's 90-member mathematical
>Thank Tank team.  :-)

One typo and one Freudian slip!   It's Ron Graham and Bell-Lab
(Murray-Hill) Think Tank team!  :-)

Ron had the fortune of marrying his wife Fan Chung, who later headed
the Bell-Core Think Tank, who was infinitely smarter than Ron, at
least mathematics-wise, and Ron is not exactly a Lightweight either.

Chung was first noticed by her mathematics professor Wilf when she
scored by far the highest grade in the PhD prelim exam in math.  And
when Wilf tried to interest her in an area she knew little about,
and gave her a book to read about Ramsey thoery.  This was Herb Wilf
talking,

"When she came to the appointment <a week later> I aksed her how
she liked the chapter.  She smiled and said it was fine.  Then she
flip the book to a key theorem and said, gently, 'I think I can do
a little better with my proof''  My eyes were bulging.  I was very
excited.  I asked her to go to the blackboard and show me.  What
she wrote was incredible!  In just one week, from a cold start, she
had a major result in Ramsey theory.  I told her she had just done
2/3 of a doctoral dissertation."


But Ron Graham is more of a "regular, interesting guy".  He could
juggle 6 balls consistently, and 7 balls less consistently.  He is
a past president of the International Jugglers Association.  He is
an accomplished trampolinist, who put himself through collegeas a
circus acrobat.  He has bowled 300 games, is vicious with a
boomerang, and more than hold his own at tennis and Ping-Pong.
Graham became the Ping-Pong champ of Bell Labs, and when he first
met Erdos, Graham said, "I was amazed that he beat me at Ping-Pong."

But then, when Erdos was in his 80s, Graham said, "Paul loved
challenges.  I'd give him 19 points and play sitting down."

I remember Erdos playing at the Ping Pong table during one of his
visits to Clemson.

La Poisson.



  is a
trampoline artist who said a mathemtical result sometimes came at
the height of his trampoline bounce.  He and Chung work on joint
mathematical papers while riding a tantam bike