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A prominent logician and the LFCS General Chair since 1989 Anil Nerode has just turned 80. The symposium is planning a special session on January 8 in honor of Professor Nerode.
- Dear Professor Nerode,
I feel very lucky that I had the chance to visit you and being one your students at Cornell 30 years ago. Thanks for all your guidance and your kindness.
Happy birthday! Very best wishes for your happiness, good health, and wonderful achievements as ever. (Wenqi Huang 2/27/13)
- Dear Professor Nerode,
Thank you for your invaluable suggestions today. I am very happy that I have the chance to meet you at Ithaca, and to sit in your course. Best wishes on your 80th birthday. I wish you and your family good health, long life, happiness, and success. (Kun He 1/30/12)
- Dear Professor,
I thank you for so much: thank you for my year at beautiful Cornell, with all its wonders of nature; thank you for your insights into logic (“everything is a tree”), and thank you for this career that I have loved for 40 years and which I cannot imagine my life without. For everything, merci, mon ami,
Best wishes on this birthday and the many more to come,
Charlotte (Charlotte Chell 1/16/13)
- Best wishes for an extraordinary scientist (as it turned out again at this marvelous conference)! (Bernhard Heinemann 1/10/13)
- Among many things, Anil, you created the infrastructure for the branch of Applied Logic, called Answer Set Programming. This would not happen without you and these of us who work in this area are very grateful to you.
MANY Thanks,
Witek (Victor Marek 1/9/13)
- Dear Professor Nerode,
I cordially wish you good health, happiness, and success! (Andrey Morozov 1/9/13)
- I am sorry for not being aware of this chance earlier, but best wishes never come late. Sincerely hope you have a nice birthday, and stay healthy, warm, and peaceful in this winter! (Junhua Yu 1/8/13)
- Dear Anil, best wishes for your 80th birthday, and I hope to see you in San Diego. (Loren Cobb 1/6/13)
- Dear Anil,
You are a sage! and we will celebrate your gentle, strong, ever-enthusiastic (always like a little kid!), generous and practical-minded presence among us, ever-so-long as we have this gift. We celebrate this on your 80th birthday … and most Thursdays as well.
When I was a graduate student in San Diego, I read (as best I could) your book “Combinatorial Functors” before (switching from Math to CS) I learned the Myhill-Nerode Theorem and fell hard in love with that — a romance with yet a long ways to go.
You are one of the most seminal mathematicians of the last 100 years — the breadth of your technical contributions, theory-building imagination, courageous curiousity and leadership (and mentorship and constancy) … English fails! There is a name in another language for guys like you.
Happy birthday!
Mike and Fran (Michael Fellows 1/6/13)
- Happy birthday Anil, and many long years of good health and continued activity in the field!
All my best,
Jim (Jim Lipton 1/5/13)
- Dear Anil,
I remember very well your hospitality. It was wonderful for me to organize a conference in Tver with you. Your birthday is a great celebration for us. We wish you a happy birthday.
Have a good health, good luck, many successes!!
Have a nice year!!
All the best! (Michael Taitslin 1/5/13)
- Dear Anil,
Congratulations to you, from one of the multitude who has been fortunate enough to have known you these many years. (Melvin Fitting 1/4/13)
- Dear Professor Nerode,
congratulations and best wishes on your anniversary, also on behalf of the other members of the Kazan group in Mathematical Logic and Theoretical Computer Science.
Best regards,
Marat Arslanov
Head of the Department
of Algebra and Mathematical Logic
Faculty of Mathematics
Kazan Federal University (Marat Arslanov 1/4/13)
- Anil’s love for the history of mathematics and his insights into putting to use advanced mathematics to solve real-world problems have had a profound impact on me. I feel greatly privileged to have been a student of his. (Srikanth Gottipati 1/4/13)
- Dear Anil, When I started doing logic you were already a respected authority. My, not completely logical, conclusion was that you had to be older. As it is you confirm my private belief that all logicians are roughly the same age. We are actually from the same year and month, so I consider my belief vindicated. It took us a long time to meet in person; I was immediately captivated by your personality, you were not only a memorable logician but also a man of culture – remember the Vivaldi violin concerto? My wife and I have fond memories of our stay in Ithaca and of the Nerode family. May the world be kind to you and your wife, you mean a lot to us and countless others. Welcome to the circle of octogenarians.
Love and best wishes from Dokie and Dirk (Dirk van Dalen 1/4/14)
- Dear Anil,
I’m happy to express you my best susceptibilities on the occasion of your birthday.
At the beginning of my mathematical biography my interests were very close to yours and I with great appreciation follow your publications.
I have thankful reminiscences on your hospitality during my visits to Cornell.
I ask you to receive my best wishes.
Cordially yours,
Vladimir A. Uspenskiy (Vladimir A. Uspenskiy 1/4/13)
- Dear Professor Nerode,
At this very special occasion of your 80th birthday celebration, I would like to send my best wishes for your happiness, good health, and wonderful achievements as ever.
I’ve had the extreme luck of listening to your enlightening comments and encouragement ever since I started my dissertation work at Cornell over 20 years ago. Your deep insight helped me understand my research infinitely beyond my imagination, by connecting our method for program optimization by incrementalization in the discrete domain to integration by differentiation in continuous mathematics.
I’ve felt ever luckier and more enlightened in the past year, after you pointed out even deeper connections to physics, where program invariants essential to our optimization method correspond to conservation laws in physics. This is beyond my wildest dreams and brought me back to my old passion for physics when I was in middle school, high school, and college.
If I understood your ideas correctly, the search for hidden variables underlies all computations, whether by the physical world for optimizations following conservation laws or by the thought process in mathematics and logic for optimizations preserving invariants. I cannot thank you enough for everything you’ve taught me. I often feel I want to be a student again, taking many more lessons from you.
Despite having tried to visit you in Ithaca every year, I couldn’t do that in the past year due to family mishaps, but fortunately those are past. I look forward to seeing you soon in San Diego and visiting you in Ithaca this year.
I’m finally finishing the last bits of my book—an overview of our method for systematic program design and optimization—after more than 6 years. I look forward to bringing you a completed copy of the book when I visit you in Ithaca.
Best wishes from Scott and me,
Annie (Annie Liu 1/3/13)
- Happy Birthday!
Anil and I have been freinds for over 60 years. So, while most will discuss his fundamental contributions to mathematics, I shall make two more personal observations.
1) When Anil and I were graduate students most mathematicians saw logic as philosopically interesting but not a serious mathematical discipline. But Anil had the foresight to know otherwise and I benefitted from mumerous discussions with him.
2) Anil had insight that some people(for various reasons) had problems that kept them from realizing their full potential. He developedthe rare ability to guide such people to a higher level of achievement. (Michael Morley 1/3/13)
- Dear Anil, Very best wishes on your 80th birthday! (Stephen Cook 1/2/13)
- Dear Anil: I feel very lucky to have been one of your students at Cornell. You are truly an amazing man. Your wide intellectual interests, the range of your work, the generous sharing of your mathematical ideas have inspired your colleagues and students. I want to thank you for the support and encouragement you have given me throughout the years. I wish you the happiest of happy birthdays.
Jack (Jacob Plotkin 1/2/13)
- Dear Anil, a very happy birthday! I wish you all the best and many birthdays to come. Thanks a lot for your help and support. (Evgeny Dantsin 1/2/13)
- Dear Professor Nerode,
We are very pleased to congratulate you on your 80th birthday!
You are world-recognized for your fundamental contributions to computability theory, hybrid systems and other important fields in pure and applied logic and modern mathematics.
Your influential results and ideas are developed by your numerous former students and your colleagues in different countries.
We are happy to collaborate with you during many years and hope to continue our fruitful collaboration on actual aspects of logic.
This day, we wish you and your family good health, long life, happiness, and success.
Happy Birthday!
From the members of seminar “algebra and logic”
Yuri Ershov and Sergey Goncharov (Yuri Ershov and Sergey Goncharov 1/2/13)
- Dear Anil , On the occasion of your 80th birthday I want to thank you from my heart for being my mentor and friend over so many years . You gave me much more than support for the start of my academic career. You have been and continue to be a precious point of reference for most of what I do (or choose not to do) at both professional and personal levers. I regret not being able to be physically present for this celebration and I pledge that we will get together before this (new) year is over. Have a great 80th birthday ! (George Metakides 1/2/13)
- Anil, You are 80 and have accomplished what many 10s of mathematicians would not be able to do in 80 years. You are a true scholar, organiser, visionary, and supporter of young and talented people. The maths and cs community has been blessed to have you around for so many years. Your ideas, vision, and energy have been an inspiration for many of us, including myself. Happy Birthday!!! (Bakh Khoussainov 1/2/13)
- Dear Anil,
Through your seminal contributions and through your active and steadfast support of the younger generations you have truly changed the face of logic, both pure and applied.
Here is to you, with best wishes for many years to come!
Andre Scedrov (Andre Scedrov 1/1/13)
- Dear Professor Nerode,
Happy birthday and congratulations on this occasion celebrating your many accomplishments and brilliant research work that continues to the present day. Thank you for all your help and guidance, and your kindness, and most of all for your stimulating ideas. Best wishes for many more years of excellent and interesting research! (Gerry Brady 1/1/13)
- Dear Anil,
You play a unique role in logic and applied logic. You knew personally almost all the great logicians of the 20th century and have successfully linked pure logic and numerous applications. You have connected the realms of fundamental research, bureaucracy, and funding in the most efficient way. You have bridged East and West and generously shared your vision of life and science. You have supported an enormous number of people through your wisdom, administrative prowess, and resources. We are blessed to have met you and enjoyed your friendship and support for the past 20 years for which we will always be grateful. We wish you many creative healthy and happy years. (Elena Nogina & Sergei Artemov 12/31/12)
- Anil – Thanks for letting us cook & waltz countless times at your house, nagging me to a dissertation, and appreciating my flight to … well, airplanes! Glad I made it to your 60th birthday celebration in Ithaca, and hoping this 80th birthday is even more brilliant! LOVE & GRATITUDE! (Charlotte Lin 12/31/12)
- Congratulations! (Douglas Cenzer 12/31/12)
- Happy Birthday Anil!
You’ve been a great mentor to me over the years, I feel lucky to know you. Good luck in the new year!
Aaron (Aaron Diaz 12/31/12)
- Hi Anil, happy 80th.I have the great privilege of working with you. Your stewardship of the Mathematical Sciences Institute (MSI) at Cornell is an important milestone in contemporary mathematics and has and will have important impact on many branches of mathematics and other sciences (Jagdish Chandra 12/30/12)
- Without your guidance, advice, and intervention, I do not know where my life would have ended up. You opened the door for me to achieve my goal of becoming a logician, something I do not think would have been possible without your support. You were my most important mentor and guide in college, and you have continued advising me ever since. For all of this, I will be forever in your debt, and I will always be grateful. Thank you for everything. I wish you a very happy birthday—with many more to come! (Bryan Renne 12/28/12)
- Happy Birthday, Anil. I’ve been following your career since we were teenage undergraduates together in the College of the University of Chicago. At sixteen you already impressed everyone who met you. Since that time you’ve zoomed way out of my level, but I can appreciate the heights you’ve reached. Your own accomplishments are impressive and so are those of your many Ph.D. students. I’m happy as you turn 80 that you are being honored today by this session.
Kins Collins (Kins Collins 12/28/12)
- Anil,
Evelyn and I wish you a very Happy Birthday. In your career you have made a major, continuing, impact on Mathematical Logic and deserve the gratitude of all of us whom you have guided over the years.
Aloha
Richard Platek (Richard Platek 12/27/12)
- Dear Anil,
About 35 years ago, you visited Boston and while you were there, you gave me a bit of extraordinarily apt advice. It was clear that I was not going to continue in logic. You said, ‘for someone like you, the two main choices would be computer science or statistics.’ I replied that I thought statistics would be the better choice. You said, ‘The thing to do is find the best person in statistics in your vicinity and ask him if he has a project you could be useful on. That person is Fred Mosteller.’ So I followed your advice, and it all worked out rather well. Fred was kind and welcoming, and many other real statisticians have helped me. But your guidance was the most succinct, precise, and helpful intervention I have ever received in my career. I am not as useful to my students, but I tell that story to all of them, so you are famous among a group you may not be aware of. Best wishes on your 80th birthday. (Philip W. Lavori 12/27/12)
- dear anil,
best wishes for the special session in honour of your 80th birthday. i wish i could be there, as i was in cornell for the party in honour of your 60th birthday: unfortunately,that very same day i’ll be in one of the places you loved so much to visit (luxor, egypt). but i promise i’ll be there for the next event, 20 years from now, when you’ll certainly be still teaching and working, and i’ll probably come on a wheelchair.
i seize this opportunity, however, to thank you for all you did for me in the last 30 years. we met for the first time in the early 80’s, not far from where you all are now (at ucla). and since 1985 you and richard shore generously hosted me in cornell, for 18 years in a row (bob soare will remember the race between the two of us, to determine who would spend more consecutive summers in ithaca).
i’m afraid i’ve solemnly let you down at least once, with the book we were supposed to write on intuitionistic logic together with richard platek, and that still lies in manuscript form, after 20 years, 4 versions and 500 written pages. perhaps some young researcher might pick it up, and bring it to an end. otherwise, i solemny promise i’ll finish it for your 100th (and my 82nd) birthday.
you have been for me an example and an inspiration. and most of the historical work that i’m doing now, after my retirement, has its seeds in your notes and your courses on the history of mathematics. and you have also been a generous friend, inviting me to uncountably many lunches and dinners, even hosting me in your own house for a number of summers.
it was great to seeing you again last summer, after so many years. and i’m looking forward to the next chance of reviving our conversations, on the most diversified topics (from godel and logic, to yogananda and hinduism). for now, once again, my best wishes for your 80th birthday, which for you just means 4 20th birthdays all at once.
ciao, anil!
george (piergiorgio odifreddi 12/27/12)
- Fond memories of our many conversations in our graduate student years; all very stimulating and helpful. On the one hand, it was a long time ago; on the other hand, it seems like yesterday: various memories are detailed and vivid. It’s the uncanny nature of time. Anyway, happy birthday, Anil! (William Howard 12/21/12)
- For more than half your life (and mine) you have been friend, colleague, mentor, advisee, antagonist, protagonist and a constant inspiration. With gratitude and affection, jnc. (John Crossley 12/19/12)
- Dear Prof., A very happy birthday to you! You have been a very deep source of inspiration and I thank you for your support and encouragement. (Praveen Narayanan 12/16/12)
- Anil was a major intellectual force in my academic life during my years at Cornell, and subsequently during my years working for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington. Anil and I originally met in the early 1970’s at Cornell’s then remarkable Statler Club in the Cornell Hotel School’s Statler Inn, where faculty from all over the campus would come to have lunch. After meals, groups would form in the many small seating areas in the Club’s coffee lounge, and we would each get to know people from all different schools, departments, and disciplines, whom we would otherwise have never met. Anil as a mathematician, and I as a biologist, engaged in long philosophical discussions about quantification in science, and from these discussions grew a forty year friendship and collaboration.
We began to work together on the then barely nascent science of environmental risk assessment, and became co-principal investigators on a research project in which Anil’s statistician wife, Sally Sievers, was also an important contributor. That and other environmental work drew me to Washington where I had the opportunity to involve Anil in a broader range of environmental and political issues. Anil was selected as one of EPA’s tiny number of distinguished visiting academic scientists, he co-chaired EPA’s first workshop on the potential use of artificial intelligence for environment, was a member of EPA’s Science Advisory Board, and was selected first by Republican EPA Administrator Bill Riley to be one of four members of an elite panel charged with evaluating the future of science at EPA, and several years later by Democratic EPA Administrator Carol Browner to be a member of NACEPT, the National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology. Along the way, he chaired the Global Change Research Advisory Committee during the formative years of the US Government’s global change research program, and continued to advise individual scientists and program managers on a broad range of scientific issues. Anil’s voracious appetite for knowledge and remarkable facility in a broad range of seemingly unrelated areas is often unknown by those colleagues who only know him only in the context of his formidable work related to mathematical logic, but I can assure you that his other intellectual contributions have made a difference in many of our lives. I thank him for his years of friendship, and congratulate him both on his 80th birthday and for the celebration in his honor at the Symposium on Logical Foundations of Computer Science. (Peter R. Jutro 12/9/12)
- Anil. you have been a founding figure in our field of research and a role model for many of us. Best wishes for your birthday! (Moshe Vardi 11/29/12)
- Dear Anil: I have had the good fortune to do research with you, almost continuously, for the last 26 years! Our work in Hybrid systems has now many legs. Our work on Finsler Dynamics has found several applications. Our research into Quantum Hybrid Control is reaching publication levels. It has been a rewarding collaboration… and the best is yet to come! Happy Birthday (Wolf Kohn 11/27/12)
- Hi Anil, many thanks for all you have done for maths and for me personally. You should be proud. And happy birthday. (Rodney Downey 11/26/12)
- Happy birthday! Wishing you many more years of excellent research! (Alex Brik 11/19/12)
- Dear Anil, Thanks for all your help and support over the years, from my student days to the present. You have accomplished a great deal: wide ranging research and an extraordinary collection list of students. Many more birthdays! Gerald (Gerald Sacks 11/17/12)
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