Moments

 In a sense, this psoment is a continuation of the previous one: https://wlodmoments.blogspot.com/2025/09/psoments-nr1-2025-09-08-still-early.html ============================================ A conversation took place in 1976/77, downtown London (Ontario), in a restaurant. As the so-called Colloquium Chairman I invited an old friend (RIP) to give two talks, one for the mathematics department (at UWO), and the other talk for the mathematics, computer science and statistics departments (actually, for anybody who would like to listen). I invited people to the colloquiums mainly from Poland (half of them were already emigrants) because they were superb mathematicians, and everybody listening to them was happy. My old friend was not young (already at the time), he was just a bit more than ten years older than me, and clearly over forty. Nevertheless, at the restaurant table, he told me that no mathematician after forty get's new, truly original ideas. That surprised me. I mentioned seve...

My previous psoment: https://wlodmoments.blogspot.com/2025/09/psoments-nr0-written-on-2025-09-08.html is very different from the present one while the next one will be somewhat related to this one.  A friend of mine (RIP) who was just a bit than six years older then, told me in 1961 that it is better to write papers short rather than long. We were both mathematicians.  I was still a student at the time. A couple of years later he told me though the opposite, that it is better to write long papers rather than short ones. He didn't remember his earlier statement but I did. I said nothing anyway -- only now, right here, over sixty years after those conversations from the past. Let me add that at the time of the earlier mentioned conversation my friend published only short papers. Then, after he published a couple of longer papers he shared with me his new view without being aware of his earlier statement. ========================================= I solved two mathematical problem...

Psoments is my neologism, it stands for moments and for psychological moments . =========================================== My first days and weeks in the US. I came there together with Ela (my wife then, and a friend forever), and with our two small daughters, Joanna (Asia), and Gosia. It was during the summer (or late spring) of 1969. We landed perhaps at LaGuardia. My uncle Bernard greeted us and took to his NY-apartment. Then we went to our destination, to Ann Arbor. For a very long time I didn't want to admit that I was unhappy most of the time but I was. I certainly felt uncomfortable. But there were some nice moments. Before I was formally a UofM faculty member the Mathematics Department already -- right away -- gave me keys to the Angel Hall building, and to their great mathematical library. After my life under the communism, this was wonderfully refreshing, and so different. However, my reminiscences from my years under communism I'll save for later. My psoments are ...