Thursday, March 09, 2006

(132) Professor Lipton

On May 20th 1997 I flew from Geneva to London. There were only thirty-three passengers on the flight.

I happened to notice that the man seated two rows ahead of me was reading from a copy of The Daily Telegraph. He had open a page that contained a report of Kasparov’s recent defeat by the computer, Deeper Blue.

Then I noticed that the man seated directly in front of me was studying some hand drawn chess problems.

Upon landing I asked if he were a problemist, having introduced myself as a Grandmaster.
He revealed that he was indeed a problem composer and that his name was Michael Lipton, a Professor of Economics at Sussex University.
He was returning from a conference on Social Exclusion in Geneva.

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