Park City Mathematics Institute, July, 1998

This high-resolution image is in some way the responsibility of Monica Nevins, although her presence in the group may seem to reduce her direct involvement. In any case the individuals appearing here are (in back) Eugenio Garnica, Wentang Kuo, David Vogan, Susana Salamanca, Jing-Song Huang, and Bill Graham; in front are Thom Pietraho, Adam Lucas, Dana Pascovici, Monica Nevins, and Peter Trapa. The badges worn by the more responsible people are of course unreadable here; but they attest to the fact that the photograph was taken at the 1998 Park City Mathematics Institute. The selection rule at work here might be deduced from a careful reading of my home page: these are my present and former students who attended that meeting. (For the rest of you: we missed you!) The black bag in front of Peter, which was always near him, contained the incredible Tony Knapp disguise that he wore while presenting Tony's lectures in the graduate summer school and on other formal occasions. Precisely what was in the disguise we never learned, although certainly a neatly pressed dress shirt with a button-down collar was involved.
 
 
 

This picture was also created by Monica Nevins, apparently using a cheap matte background of some sort. The setting is Mount Timpanogos, near Salt Lake City; the occasion is again the July, 1998 PCMI meeting. The sweat on my arms must have come from the studio lights, because honesty compels me to admit that I came nowhere near the summit of this mountain.

Somebody came near the top of the mountain, however: in fact two somebodies, shown here at various small distances from the summit. Holding the camera (to be precise, I suppose, holding one of the cameras) is Dana Pascovici. Sitting at the very top is Thom Pietraho. The low resolution of this image precludes reading his T-shirt, so you'll just have to go through life with one less collection of quaint Vermont aphorisms than you might otherwise have enjoyed.

I should perhaps emphasize that the PCMI program involved much more than mountain climbing and group photography. Each morning participants faced a grueling four hour session waiting for Kari Vilonen to get up, so that we could be tormented with equivariant versions of the kind of homology theory that would have given Poincare nightmares. Certainly a test of character and endurance, and if a few participants elected to make their escapes to play in the snow, no one thought the less of them for it.