Michael Cohen

When I first saw posts about Michael Cohen (see here, here, here) I wondered

is that the same Michael Cohen who I knew as a HS student?

It is.  I share one memory.

Michael Cohen's father is Tom Cohen, a physics professor at UMCP.  They were going to a Blair High School Science fair and I got a ride to it (I had some students presenting at it.) In the car with Tom and Michael, Michael began telling is dad that his dad's proofs were not rigorous enough. I was touched by the notion that father and son could even have such a conversation.

Were Tom's proofs rigorous? I suspect that for Physics they were. But the fact that Michael could, as a high school student, read his dad's paper and have an opinion on it, very impressive. And very nice.

Michael was brilliant. It's a terrible loss.