Sunday, January 26, 2025

People who live through two square years

 44*44=1936.

45*45=2025. This year!

46*46= 2116.

Since my fake birthday is Oct 1, 1960 (I do not reveal my real birthday to try to prevent ID theft), which is past 1936, and I won't live to 2116 unless Quantum-AI finds a way to put my brain in a a vat, I will not see two square years in my life :-(

Since I keep a list of celebrities (defined as people I know who have some fame - so its subjective) who are over 80, I have a LIST of celebrities who were born in 1936 or earlier. I was going to list them in this post but there are to many. So I list those that I think my readers care about, and point to the full list.

Here are people who have lived through two squares who I think you care about. I leave out how old they are or what year they were born.  They are in alphabetical order by their first names. I put a * next to the people who, in 1936, were  AWARE that it was a square year. So the starred names are those who truly ENJOYED living through 2 square years.

NAME                  KNOWN TO US FOR

Andrzej Ehrenfeucht   Math. EF-games (he is the E)
Anil Nerode                   Math- Recursive Math
Aviezri Fraenkel           Math-Combinatorial Games

Buzz Aldrin             Walked on the moon

Charles Duke           Walked on the moon.

Dana Scott            Math-CS. Prog Langs. Turing Award
David Scott           Walked on the moon
Dirk Van Dalen     Math- Logic

Eric Hirsch Jr        American Educator *

Harrison Schmidt      Walked on the Moon.
Harry Furstenberg     Math-Ergodic methods in Ramsey Theory.
Heisuka Hironik        Math-Algebraic Geom-Fields Medal
Herman Chernoff      Math-Probability *

Jack Edmonds         CS. Theorist.
James Watson          Biologist-The Double Helix. Nobel Prize with Crick.*
Jane Goodall            Zoologist and Activist
Jean-Pierre Serre     Math. Algebraic X. Fields Medal.*
John Thompson       Math. Group Theory.  Fields Medal, Abel Prize

Micahel Rabin           CS/ Math. Theorsit. Turing Award.

Noam Chomsky          Linguistics. Did work on Grammars

Richard Friedberg     Physicist. Also invented Priority method in Rec Theory.
Richard Karp            CS. Theorist. Turing Award. .
Richard Stearns        CS. Theorist. Turing Award.

Stephen Smale         Math-Lots of Stuff

Tom Baker             Actor-Dr. Who.
Tom Lehrer            Math/Novelty songs..*
Tony Hoare            CS. PL. Turing Award.

Volker Strassen       Math-CS.

Walter Koenig         Actor. Star Trek
William Shatner      Actor- Star Trek

For my complete list see here

It is currently  impossible for someone to live through three square years (again, unless they get their brain in a vat, or some other not-yet-invented mechanism). In a much earlier era it was possible: 

20*20=400

21*21=441

22*22=484

So if you were born in 400 and lived to be 84 years old, three squares! While MOST people didn't live that long back then, SOME did.

10*10=100

11*11=121

12*12=144

Born in the year 100, live to be 44 years old. Was the calendar well established by then?

Reminds me of a great line from A Funny Think Happened on the Way to the Forum, a musical that takes place in the early AD's. The character Pseudolus says: 

(Looking at a bottle of wine) Was 1 a good year?


3 comments:

  1. Someone born in France in 1764 would have lived through four square years when reaching the age of 36: 1764 = 42 * 42, and the years 1791, 1795 and 1800 are the years I, IV and IX of the French Revolutionary Calendar which was in effect those years. The calendar was abolished before reaching year XVI. But if said person lived to be 85, he/she could add a fifth square year: 1849 = 43 * 43.

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    Replies
    1. 1) Did not know that! Thanks!
      2) Was IV a good year for wine?

      Delete
  2. It is Andrzej Ehrenfeucht

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