(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. He revealed that he was indeed a composer of chess problems and that his name was Michael Lipton, a Professor of Economics at Sussex University. I introduced myself as a Grandmaster.
Professor Lipton was returning from a conference on Social Exclusion in Geneva.

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