o****y
发帖数: 790 | 1 【 以下文字转载自 Faculty 讨论区 】
发信人: outcry (outcry), 信区: Faculty
标 题: 学术界之风花雪月（4）人生无常
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Thu Oct 14 16:04:00 2010, 美东)
disclaimer：学术八卦，文责不负
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Life became a bit boring lately. Like many great philosophers in human
history:), I began to contemplate the true meaning of my life.
As some of you probably knew, I am an algorithm buff, which is to say that I
am addicted to all sorts of strategic ideas and mathematical algorithms. As
such,it is no wonder I am also deeply fascinated with the personal life of many
great computer scientists. Throughout my career, I had the utmost pleasure
of acquainting with some of them in person. Today, I'd like to reflect on one
of them, Rajeev Motwani, Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University,
who passed away on June 5, 2009.
My first encounter with Professor Motwani was many years ago during my first
advanced algorithm class "Topics in Random Algorithm". Two things caught my
eyes during that class. First, Rajeev had a very peculiar taste in clothing.
Living in silicon valley, I am accustomed to all kinds of "casual" dressing.
Still, if my memory serves me right, Rajeev was wearing a pair of black,
cheap-looking, plastic slippers and a pair of snow-white cotton soaks. Many
years went by, but that image of his odd-looking foot-ware just vividly
stuck in my head, which sometimes makes me shiver. Second, he was very
passionate if not frenetic in talking about research. Just at that time, I realized
that I wanted to be like that, i.e., truly loving what you do. The topic in that
class was to discuss Andrew Yao's "The Complexity of Searching an Ordered
Random Table", (with F. F. Yao). The way he described the inner beauty of
Yao's paper stroke me as the way that a teenage boy brags about his favorite
video game. Boy, I was impressed!
Now, you may wonder why I torment you with such reflections. The reason is
rather simple: Rajeev died tragically at a very early age. Despite his
tremendous successes, he died at 47 during the apex of his career.
Ironically, his death happened right after he purchased a luxurious mansion
at Palo Alto. For many years, he was living in a nice house on Stanford campus
without a swimming pool. The rumor was, due to the financial success of his
numerous investments, he and his family decided to upgrade their house with
a more grand homestead with a swimming pool. Unfortunately, shortly after
their moving-in, he died tragically by drowning at the very pool his family
had desired.
To me, this story drove home the point: life is uncertain. Cherish
everything you possess at every moment at your disposal!!!
So, dear readers, do me and yourself a favor: give a passionate kiss to
someone you love, read a story to your kids before their sleep, shrug off
unnecessary burdens in your life, give your self a good half hour to enjoy
reading a fine novel even when the deadline of your funding proposals
approaches alarmingly fast!
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additional info about Rajeev:
Rajeev was a luminary in many academic disciplines. He made fundamental
contributions to the foundations of computer science, search and information
retrieval, streaming databases and data mining, and robotics. In these
areas, he considered questions as philosophical as what makes problems inherently
intractable, and as practical as finding similar images and documents from a
database. His text book, Randomized Algorithms, with Prabhakar Raghavan,
epitomizes this meeting of the abstract and the concrete, and has been a
source of inspiration to countless students. He has received many awards for his
research; notably, the Gödel Prize, and the Arthur P. Sloan Foundation
Research Fellowship. Rajeev’s academic legacy extends to teaching and advising a
large number of students, many of whom have gone on to successful academic
careers.
In addition to his academic accomplishments, Rajeev was a legendary figure
in Silicon Valley. He was an early investor and technical advisor for many
ventures, and mentored dozens of young entrepreneurs. In the words of one
of those young entrepreneurs, Sergey Brin, “Today, whenever you use a piece of
technology, there is a good chance a little bit of Rajeev Motwani is behind it.” | p****y
发帖数: 23737 | 2 nice! looking forward to more academic stories. :)
I
As
many
【在 o****y 的大作中提到】
: 【 以下文字转载自 Faculty 讨论区 】
: 发信人: outcry (outcry), 信区: Faculty
: 标 题: 学术界之风花雪月（4）人生无常
: 发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Thu Oct 14 16:04:00 2010, 美东)
: disclaimer：学术八卦，文责不负
: －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－
: Life became a bit boring lately. Like many great philosophers in human
: history:), I began to contemplate the true meaning of my life.
: As some of you probably knew, I am an algorithm buff, which is to say that I
: am addicted to all sorts of strategic ideas and mathematical algorithms. As
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