I am interested in any stories about the 1969 Summer Institute at Bowdoin. Who was there? In particular,the Reports of the Midwest Category Seminar IV (SLN 137) has a humor piece written as a ``final exam'' for the Institute. It is signed ``Phreilambud.'' Who is this? I can make it up out of various people's names, but I don't know who was there. Colin
``Phreilambud'' was written by me, a young student named Lambert who disappeared, I think, from mathematics and David Eisenbud, now paying for his sins as head of MSRI (Berkeley). Peter
This is from memory so there could be some inaccuracies. I first met John Isbell there since I shared office space with him. He said that he saw no need to get a room since he could just sleep in the office. Peter Freyd's daughters babysat my daughter Eleanor, aged 2, and son Lauchlin, aged 2 months and my first wife Dorinne often spoke with Pam. Phreilambud included David Eisenbud for sure, and possibly Eilenberg, Freyd and others. John On Sun, 2 Oct 2005, Colin McLarty wrote:
I am interested in any stories about the 1969 Summer Institute at Bowdoin. Who was there?
In particular,the Reports of the Midwest Category Seminar IV (SLN 137) has a humor piece written as a ``final exam'' for the Institute. It is signed ``Phreilambud.'' Who is this? I can make it up out of various people's names, but I don't know who was there.
Colin
I attended the Bowdoin Summer Seminar as a 2nd year math grad student with some training in math logic and none in category theory. MacLane gave the principal lectures (later developed into his CWM) and others (Eilenberg, Isbell) weighed in with lectures on special topics. A few points stick in memory. For instance, Eilenberg lectured on his categorical treatment of abstract machine theory. At one point he was analyzing the words generated by a set of symbols A, and he derived that I+A+A^2+... = [I-A]^-1 with such flourish that a spontaneous applause broke out in the audience. Otherwise, Eilenberg along with Lawvere and Tierney played poker and smoked cigars with great relish. In one lecture on some of Linton's results, MacLane presented a picture of an Australian road sign for the town of "Colinton" which MacLane said was named after Linton's antipodal dual. Foreign (i.e., non-North-American) category theorists were represented by (at least) Eduardo Dubuc and Sabah Fakir. I don't know about "Phreilambud" but I suspect the "bud" is from Eisenbud who mentions in his Preface to MacLane's mathematical autobiography that Bowdoin was the only time he saw "Saunders and Sammy" together and that all gathered around when they discussed the origins of the subject one evening after dinner. These were early days in the so-called 'foundations' debate with set theory where the latter was represented at Bowdoin by Feferman. I suspect that many of the arguments expressed in Feferman's 1977 article (which Colin recently described as "the most sustained critique of categorical foundations to date" [Phil. Math. 2005]) were hammered out at Bowdoin. The last session of the seminar was called the "prayer meeting" where various people were asked to "let their hair down" and talk informally about the future of CT and foundations. I was the symbolic grad student asked to say a few words and I was so nervous I don't remember what the others said! I made a few (certainly elementary and perhaps incoherent) remarks on the difference between sets as (non-self-participating) universals for a property in contrast with the (self-participating) universals (UMPs) of CT which in some sense exemplify the property they represent (ideas developed years later in an article on "concrete universals" and CT in Erkenntnis 1988). The final social event was a feast of Maine lobsters at a nearby beach presided over by MacLane and Dorothy. As we were devouring our lobsters, I particularly remember MacLane shouting out to all assembled: "Don't eat the green stuff, don't eat the green stuff!" (a reference to lower part of the lobster's alimentary canal). _____________________ David Ellerman Visiting Scholar University of California at Riverside Mailing address: 4044 Mt Vernon Ave Riverside, CA 92507 Email: david@ellerman.org Webpage: www.ellerman.org View my research on my SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=294049 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Colin McLarty" <colin.mclarty@case.edu> To: <categories@mta.ca> Sent: Sunday, October 02, 2005 8:00 PM Subject: categories: Phreilambud at Bowdoin 1969
I am interested in any stories about the 1969 Summer Institute at Bowdoin. Who was there?
In particular,the Reports of the Midwest Category Seminar IV (SLN 137) has a humor piece written as a ``final exam'' for the Institute. It is signed ``Phreilambud.'' Who is this? I can make it up out of various people's names, but I don't know who was there.
Colin
a picture of an Australian road sign for the town of "Colinton" which MacLane said was named after Linton's antipodal dual. Foreign (i.e., non-North-American) category theorists were represented by (at least) Eduardo Dubuc and Sabah Fakir.
Presumably I was considered North American at the time as the Bowdoin Seminar came between a postdoc at U Illinois (Champ-Urb) and a assistant professorship at Tulane. Sammy commented that I began the summer as an Australian and ended up an all American boy. Sammy was prone to exaggeration. I have wonderful memories of that summer: Mac Lane's incredible lectures (every morning -- 2 hours I think -- for the whole summer), freezing water at the beach although the weather was hot, the "pro-seminars" run by new postdocs that were organized after Mac Lane's first lecture, becoming marooned when the tide came in and Eduardo Dubuc (up to his chest in water) carried Joan Machez (sp?) while I supported her broken leg in its cast, the tall dormitory with 16 bedrooms per level and Sammy at the top in the penthouse, that clam and lobster bake, buying beer at the supermarket where the under-aged checkout girl had to get an older person to punch in the price of the beer! and many other things mathematical and non. Mac Lane, Dubuc, Duskin and I moved down to Tulane after that for its "Year on Category Theory 1969-70". --Ross
David Ellerman wrote:
The final social event was a feast of Maine lobsters at a nearby beach presided over by MacLane and Dorothy. As we were devouring our lobsters, I particularly remember MacLane shouting out to all assembled: "Don't eat the green stuff, don't eat the green stuff!" (a reference to lower part of the lobster's alimentary canal).
The "green stuff" is not the lower part of the lobster's alimentary canal (a barely visible black "string"); it is the lobster's liver. While the texture & flavor take more getting used to than those of the white meat, the liver (known slightly confusingly as "tomalley") is perfectly wholesome, and should certainly be eaten. So, of course, should the immature eggs (bright red & known as "coral") if present. -Robert Dawson
From Google and other online sources I've learned that he's a poet (a
The inner voice of Pheilambud is Gabriel Lampert (not Lambert). He was at New Mexico State University and still is. He writes: I am currently "College Professor" of Mathematics, which means not a research position but teaching only. I dropped out of research mathematics in 1970, but have been involved in statistics at a rather basic level, now mostly just teaching it. (I also teach a course on Jewish Literature and Culture here at NMSU, and have been president of the local temple.) published poet), essayist and a national figure in the Gay/Jewish community. Las Cruces Sun-News (NM) May 13, 2004 Professor honored for social activism Gabriela C. Guzman Section: A Section Page: 5A Gabriel Lampert, a New Mexico State Univeristy math professor, was awarded the Social Justice Award issued through the Government Department. The award was first given in 2001 after two graduate students who sued NMSU for violating their free speech rights. The students won their lawsuit and used the monetary reward to establish the award. Lampert was given $250. More tragic reasons propelled Lampert, whose been affiliated with NMSU since 1968, into political activism. In the late 1970s a close friend of Lampert's was fatally shot as he walked out of a gay club in Phoenix. "The idea that people could just get away with it, that made a big difference in my life," he said. Since that time Lampert has assisted the Las Cruces Police Department and on-campus housing officials in sensitivity training, advocated for students who are harassed because of their sexual orientation and campaigned for laws to protect the rights of gays and lesbians in New Mexico. Lampert also teaches a course on Jewish literature. "We are not saying you have to like these people, but you have to allow them to live their lives, " he said.
Hi Colin, I was there as a freshly minted PhD about to go to my first academic job at University of Chicago. What i most vividly remember was Eilenberg, sitting in the center near the front, constantly asking smart questions, which did not necessarily help the speaker; and in particular, of course, i remember this during my talk on automata and recursion in cartesian closed categories. Frankly, i was a bit shocked at the level of competitiveness that i felt in the institute, no doubt my naivety showing, after spending laid back years at Berkeley. Joseph Goguen
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I am interested in any stories about the 1969 Summer Institute at Bowdoin. Who was there?
In particular,the Reports of the Midwest Category Seminar IV (SLN 137) has a humor piece written as a ``final exam'' for the Institute. It is signed ``Phreilambud.'' Who is this? I can make it up out of various people's names, but I don't know who was there.
Colin
participants (7)
-
Colin McLarty -
David Ellerman -
John MacDonald -
Joseph Goguen -
Peter Freyd -
Robert J. MacG. Dawson -
Ross Street