Jim Simons had a droll sense of humor. During my last academic year at Stony Brook, ‘69-’70, I made arrangements to go to Cuba during the Winter Break to help with their math program. The chairman had to write a letter attesting to my fitness for the job. This way I could get my passport endorsed for one round trip to Cuba. When I spoke to Simons about this, he told me about being debriefed by the IDA after a trip to Latin America. He said he told his interrogator that on his way back he stopped for a few days in Havana. The man quizzing him stiffened up, until he realized that it was a joke! (I never made it to Cuba, but that is another story.)
Another time, we were discussing in a departmental meeting what role students should have in running the department. Ever the mathematician, Simons decided to start with the first grade and work his way up. He said, “Well we can all agree that first graders should not be running the first grade,” to which my good friend and fellow “warm body”, Hugo d’Alarcao, a true Marxist if there ever was one, responded, “Why Not?”
I became friends with another mathematician, Barney Glickfield, as we worked in the same field. He was a very humorous fellow. He had taught at the University of Washington, but was job-hunting. At some math meeting, I can’t remember which one, I arranged for him to have an interview with Simons. As Barney told it, the interview was very short.
Simons: Are you fantastic?
Barney: No, but neither are you.
Simons: That’s true, but I’m the Chairman
I didn’t take well to my non-renewal. I sent out an announcement to some friends and former teachers that I had “Published and Perished”. The mantra in academe, then as now, was “Publish or Perish.” I could have stayed for the academic year ‘70-’71, but I decided instead to accept a visiting position at Kansas State University, arranged by my former teacher and good friend, Karl Stromberg.
So, in the summer of 1970, Hugo d’Alarcao, I, and another friend drove to the Southwestern U.S. At the end of the trip, they flew back to New York, and I made my way to KSU. On our way through Kansas, we stopped at Dodge City. I got a postcard with a picture of “Boot Hill”, which Hugo and I signed and mailed to Simons with the inscription “Wish you were here!”
The last time I saw Simons was at an American Math Society meeting in San Antonio in 1980. He and Bill Thurston shared a prize, and they did an unintended comedy routine on stage. Simons made some funny remarks, one of which was just after he opened the envelope with the check for the prize money. He said something to the effect that, “Last night in New York before flying down here, I thought that it would be OK to tell some friends that I had won this prize, and I asked them, ‘How much is it for? How much money?’ And no one seemed to know.” “I guess we’ll leave that as an open question.” he intoned, as he put the check back in the envelope.
After the Awards ceremony, I went down to the front of the auditorium, shook Simons’ hand and and congratulated him. He seemed a bit taken aback, I guess because of the “Wish you were here” business. But hey, he deserved the Award. It was for joint work with S. S. Chern, one of the greatest. And what are “warm bodies” for anyway, if not to be dispatched when the time comes?
I knew that Simons had gone into the money-making business in the early ’80’s and had eventually left mathematics (as a vocation, but not as an object of philanthropy), taking several other mathematicians with him. But I had no idea of the extent of his success until I read a recent article($) in the New York Times, stating that he had made $1.7 billion last year. I tried to get his email address (Fat chance of that! I could try “snail mail”, but that’s so, oh, Twentieth Century.) If I could send him an email message, here is what it would say:
Dear Jim:
Congratulations on being a mega-billionaire. Have you ever considered paying “reparations” to all those “warm bodies” you dispatched while building up the department at Stony Brook? (Just kidding!) Best wishes for continued success, and in the meantime, don’t be a hedgehog.