S. A. E. Miller, Ph.D.

I had the pleasure of watching the opera Salome in Norfolk Virginia by the Virginia Opera. My seat was in the front row and off-set a few stage right from the center. Salome is an opera (drama) in one act after the poem of Oscar Wilde, music by Richard Strauss, first performed in 1905. As always Wikipedia has a nice article on the opera. A few of my favorite lines:

Ah ! I have kissed thy mouth, Jokanaan, I have kissed thy mouth. There was a bitter taste on thy lips. Was it the taste of blood ? . . . But perchance it is the taste of love. They say that love hath a bitter taste. . . . But what of that ? what of that ? I have kissed thy mouth, Jokanaan, I have kissed thy mouth. ~Salome

and the repetitive interactions of Salome and Jokanaan. Here she compliments, he rejects, and she changes her tune, but only in so far as to openly mock him.

Salome

Jokanaan, I am amorous of thy body ! Thy body is white like the lilies of a field that the mower hath never mowed. Thy body is white like the snows that lie on the mountains, like the snows that lie on the mountains of Judaea, and come down into the valleys. The roses in the garden of the Queen of Arabia are not so white as thy body. Neither the roses in the garden of the Queen of Arabia, nor the feet of the dawn when they light on the leaves, nor the breast of the moon when she lies on the breast of the sea. . . . There is nothing in the world so white as thy body. Let me touch thy body.

Jokanaan

Back ! daughter of Babylon ! By woman came evil into the world. Speak not to me. I will not listen to thee. I listen but to the voice of the Lord God.

SALOME

Thy body is hideous. It is like the body of a leper. It is like a plastered wall where vipers have crawled; like a plastered wall where the scorpions have made their nest. It is like a whitened sepulchre full of loathsome things. It is horrible, thy body is horrible. It is of thy hair that I am enamoured, Jokanaan. Thy hair is like clusters of grapes, like the clusters of black grapes that hang from the vine-trees of Edom in the land of the Edomites. Thy hair is like the cedars of Lebanon, like the great cedars of Lebanon that give their shade to the lions and to the robbers who would hide themselves by day. The long black nights, the nights when the moon.

Costumes were relatively contemporary. Music, acting, singing, and especially set were very good. The set was interesting in that the floor, ceiling, and walls of a burnt out palace (seemingly reminding me of a worn torn contemporary Iraq) had a focal point that converged at an almost impossible close point. This gave the effect that one would be watching the opera through a wide angle lens!

This months issue of Notices of the American Mathematical Society (Vol. 62, No. 2, Feb. 2015 pp. 152 – 160) contains an interview with Professor Yakov Sinai. The interview occurred because he won an award called the Abel prize. The interview contains a large number references to A. N. Kolmogorov! Here are a few interesting quotes,

Regarding having Kolmogorov as an adviser,

Kolmogorov had many students, and I became one of them. His students had complete freedom to work on any problem. Kolmogorov loved to discuss their results. There were several cases when Kolmogorov wrote their papers in order to teach them how to write mathematical texts.

It seems that Kolmogorov did more than most to protect his students,

The other case arose with my entrance examination to graduate school. This exam was about the history of the Communist Party; I was very bad in this topic and failed the exam (I don’t want to discuss the details). But P. S. Alexandrov, who was head of the mathematical department at Moscow State University, together with Kolmogorov, visited the head of the Chair of the History of the Party and asked her to allow me to have another attempt.

Perhaps the most important excerpt might be,

At a certain time, Kolmogorov decided that the Soviet Union did not have enough applied statistics. He worked on theoretical statistics and found many beautiful and deep results, but he was not satisfied with the fact that the theorems in applied statistics were not used for practical purposes. (…) He wanted us to work on this problem and invited a very good geophysicist, Yevgeny Fyodorov, who was one of the main experts in this field. We were sitting there; Kolmogorov and Fyodorov were present. Kolmogorov said, “Look at these people; they prefer to write a paper for Doklady instead of doing something useful” (Doklady was the leading Russian journal). In our joint paper (by M. Arató, A. Kolmogorov, and me) written on this occasion, practically everything was done and written by Kolmogorov.

One might take away from this that we should focus on producing quality research, instead of focusing on placing articles in high level journals. This might be lost on many people today, especially with the publish or perish attitude so prevalent in academic circles. In the end creating high quality works, even just one over a lifetime, is more valuable than having countless articles in any publication. The point after all is to discover or explain something that has never been thought of before.

Mr. Marcolini, the branch head who hired me in at NASA, recently retired. I had the opportunity to attend his retirement party a few days ago. Highlights were many gifts, funny stories, and an amazing NASA cake! I certainly wish him a very happy retirement. I’ll miss his advice and conversation at NASA.

I am very excited about the new year and what it might bring. I recall the words of a professor and friend who wrote, `don’t predict your future – create it.’ Wishing all my colleagues, friends, and family a happy future full of making their dreams become reality! I hope that I have some big changes in store for 2015. The next major event for me is the AIAA Aerosciences conference (now called SciTech) in Orlando, FL. I will be presenting a paper and seeing many friends and colleagues. Hopefully I will make a few new friends along the way! Happy New Year.

On Christmas day I enjoyed traveling to nearby Richmond to check out the `Virginia Fine Arts Museum.’ Perhaps a bit presumptuous with its name, they showed a few select works worth seeing. I recommend visiting the museum only if you have extra free time while in the city. They do have an impressive collection of Japanese wood block prints and silver. Disappointingly, they have almost a complete lack of British (unless you like hunting sports) work and the French galleries were closed. Admission is free and parking is five dollars. Here are some photos I took.

I’m so impressed by the art of Saya Woolfalk (personal homepage link). She recently gave a talk in Norfolk that coincides with her new exhibition. The work involves the Empathics, whom are a possible future race. They seem to be a combination between plant and human biology. Each show building on the last has led to their creation of a corporation called ChimaTek, that markets their technology. Here are two of my own personal photos.

I was excited to sit in the first row by the photographers for the Worn to be Wild Fashion show in Norfolk Virginia. What a great time and so many fashionable and creative people! The theme was leather jackets that go along with the Chrysler’s current exhibit. Here are my highlights!

I am not sure if it is a secret or not, but I love Franz Kline and all his work. One of my favorites resides at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk Virginia. Here, we see Kline’s work come out of the `black and white’ era with his experiments in color. These action paintings were well planned and almost always were products of carefully planned preliminary studies. Kline painted with industrial or common house paint, instead of finer studio paints used by his contemporaries. This caused some strife with the galleries whose customers wished for more archival works. The flat shininess of the work along with many splatters, and the many whites, yellows, blues, and blacks are apparent because of this choice.

This weekend I enjoyed a rendition of Carmina Burana by the Virginia Symphony, Chorus, and the Richmond Ballet. The best part of the performance was attending with my friends. Carmia Burana was restricted to after intermission. It was a surprise to me to find other performances before intermission. It was also my first time in Chrysler Hall in Norfolk, VA. The architecture seemed to be 60’s inspired.