Re: milli-fletcher ?

[George Spagna <gspagna@rmc.edu>]

At 12:48 PM 12/6/97 -0800, you wrote:
> > I guess this is related to the reason we don't want to be the one who
> > asks the question at the seminar for fear of being thought a fool even
> > though no one in the room has understood a word for the last ten minutes.
>
> We have one of those in our department. He's no fool, and he'll never
> let the guy get more than two minutes into the murk. He's a treasure
> and a terror at the same time, and I count him among my three or four
> most valuable colleagues for that contribution alone.

I think every department has one such - or ought to if they don't.  When I
was still a graduate student there was a tale, probably apocryphal, about a
certain faculty member who demolished a dissertation defense with a back of
the envelope calculation.  My dear wife gasped audibly when he raised his
hand to ask a question at my defense!

He was one of the most respected members of the department, even though he
had no students and no funded research.  He was recognized, however, as the
one person who had a solid intuitive grasp of virtually every area of
contemporary and classical physics.

George Spagna           **********************************************
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