Notes on April 6th Carnival of Mathematics

A recent post in MathNotations received a favorable comment by Charles Daney in the 5th edition of the Carnival of Mathematics. This is particularly gratifying because the post relates to one of my students.

This week's Carnival pays special tribute to one of the 20th century's most outstanding mathematicians, Fields Medal recipient, Paul J. Cohen, who passed away on March 23rd, the date of the previous Carnival. Dr. Daney's tribute to the 'beautiful mind' of Dr. Cohen is sincere, passionate and touching. This is one mathematician's way of expressing gratitude to someone whose inspirational teaching affected his life personally. I am willing to wager that each of us who has pursued mathematics as a career in some capacity has had their life altered in some way by an inspiring educator. In addition to the major influence of my father, a great teacher in his own way, I was blessed to have many other outstanding math teachers, but my watershed experience came in Dr. Silvio Aurora's general topology class at Rutgers over forty years ago. He showed me what it means to think mathematically and to appreciate its beauty. Thank you, Dr. Daney, for bringing that flood of memories back to me.