Pictured here is a google maps snapshot of McKee Hall. Here is where I lived during the first years of graduate studies, listening almost continuously and exclusively to Bruce Springsteen (my roommate Bill was a big fan, and probably me and all McKee became big fans too). Worked on a lot of different math things ranging from Rogers-Ramanujan stuff, matrix models and string theory, computational complexity, codes and curves over finite fields. I was fortunate that the giant labyrinthine Pattee Library was very close. Pretty much like in Borges' Babel Library, the lights in Pattee's stacks were generally dim, as in the anticipation of a last minute sudden enlightenment or an uncovering of pieces of forgotten history laying dormant in an old, barely noticeable volume. Or maybe it was echoing in a mysteriously dark way the 1969 still unsolved and heartbreaking murder of the graduate student Betsy Aardsma in Pattee Library. In any case, getting out of Pattee after a couple of hours spent in the underground was a remarkable event whether outside was day or night. Getting out of the Library on a sunny day has an amazing effect (the satori of discontinuity) on somebody who spends hours studying in dark corners. On the other hand, exiting the Library while outside is dark too is also a great experience (the satori of continuity), due to the fact that it is not really a similarity, outside you can enjoy a late dinner at Ye Olde College Diner while continuing to wonder about the recent time spent in the Library.
