[HN Gopher] Arvind has died
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Arvind has died
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 129 points
Date : 2024-06-19 14:44 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.mit.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.mit.edu)
| buildbot wrote:
| Not only are his personal accomplishments amazing, but the number
| of people he taught and mentored who then went on to do the same
| with the next generation is immense.
| mattl wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvind_(computer_scientist) has
| more information
| itisit wrote:
| Not to gloss over his accomplishments, but does anyone know how
| his mononym stuck? It's one thing for an entertainer who's
| marketed as such, but quite another for an academic.
| benrapscallion wrote:
| He preferred it.
| OldGuyInTheClub wrote:
| Indian naming traditions vary by region. It gets intricate upon
| emigration and matching to Western formats. e.g. this
| distinguished biophysicist also goes by one name:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Govindjee
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Indeed. I had a professor in undergrad named Kanapathipillai
| Thirugnanasambanthan. He might've been from Sri Lanka rather
| than India proper, though.
|
| He went by "Sam Thiru".
|
| When I first began I asked a friend if he knew anything about
| this "Professor Thiru". He said "Well, that's not really his
| name. His real name wouldn't fit in the schedule." :-)
|
| Later, a different professor used him as an example of why it
| was a bad idea to hard-code the length of name fields.
|
| Great guy, and one of the best instructors I've ever had.
| OldGuyInTheClub wrote:
| > Indeed. I had a professor in undergrad named
| Kanapathipillai Thirugnanasambanthan. He might've been from
| Sri Lanka rather than India proper, though.
|
| Almost certain he's a Sri Lankan Tamil. South Indians and
| Sri Lankans transliterate slightly differently.
| gadders wrote:
| I had an Indian colleague that only had one name. To fit in
| with the company she went by a double first name. i.e (I
| can't remember her Indian name) Jane Jane.
| OldGuyInTheClub wrote:
| There's a noted chemist named Warren Warren. Washington
| State had a football player named Samoa Samoa. Hawaii had a
| great volleyball player named Allen Allen.
|
| The beat goes on. ;-)
| madcaptenor wrote:
| I really don't understand why people give names like
| this. I understand how they happen when you're trying to
| force a name into a naming convention that isn't the one
| it comes from, but why start your kid out that way?
|
| Near-miss: the poet William Carlos Williams.
| OldGuyInTheClub wrote:
| In that vein, another distinguished theoretical
| chemist/physicist: Philip Phillips
| madcaptenor wrote:
| A bit annoying to search for this guy because there's a
| Phillip Phillips who won a season of American Idol.
| OldGuyInTheClub wrote:
| But the scientist has only one 'l' in his first name.
|
| He also graduated from the University of Walla Walla.
| shawn_w wrote:
| Walla Walla University (formerly college). Really
| annoying because there's a relatively much better known
| WWU on the other side of the state. Your ordering would
| have been a better choice when it renamed.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Not to be confused with Whitman college, which is the
| more well known college in Walla Walla.
| OldGuyInTheClub wrote:
| Whoops. Correction noted.
| fastasucan wrote:
| I think the naming convention of naming your kid William
| (as an example) just so they can be called Bill the rest
| of their life is even more peculiar. Why walk that extra
| mile?
| desipenguin wrote:
| My colleague had FNU on his US visa (and hence on his
| driving license as well) https://citizenpath.com/faq/fnu-
| first-name-unknown/
|
| So it was like FNU Raj (if his name was Raj - it wasn't)
| clort wrote:
| The article (about Arvind) says he had two sons, "Divakar '01
| and Prabhakar '04" can somebody explain their names in this
| context?
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| In publications from colleges/universities, that usually
| means "graduate class of year". When no institution is
| specified, it usually means "this institution".
|
| So in this case, it means Divakar (graduate of MIT class of
| 2001) and Prabhakar (graduate of MIT class of 2004).
| ripjaygn wrote:
| I thought it was their year of birth and was confused.
| treprinum wrote:
| When you are the only Indian at CSAIL at that time, everyone
| knows you by your first name. These days it wouldn't work as
| Indians are no longer scarce in the US.
| gumby wrote:
| That was probably his whole name. The IBM Fellow Mohan
| sometimes adds an initial "C" to avoid this kind of confusion
| ("C Mohan")
|
| Also see https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-
| programmers-... , for example item 20
|
| Even in Europe, surnames weren't that common until a fashion
| for or wave of surname assignments spread from the mid 19th
| century into the 1920s.
| treprinum wrote:
| Arvind Mithal:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvind_(computer_scientist)
| bobosha wrote:
| RIP Prof. Arvind who I was lucky to rub shoulders with during my
| grad school.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Was he sick? 77 years isn't _that_ old, these days.
| nequo wrote:
| Life expectancy for men in the US is about 74 to 76 years.[1]
| In Massachusetts, it's about 76 to 78. So this does not seem
| unusual at all.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
| hedgehog wrote:
| That's a misleading number, knowing that he was a lauded prof
| at MIT we can expect that he was significantly wealthier than
| the median Mass. resident and with that significantly higher
| life expectancy.
| colechristensen wrote:
| It is a little young, the impression is right. Statistics is
| hard. "Life expectancy" being an average includes all of the
| reasons to die when you're young, and young deaths have a
| large effect on the average.
|
| The most frequent age at death is in your mid to late 80s.
| I'd like to post the statistic on the 25th and 75th
| percentile of age at death or maybe 40th, 60th, but I can't
| readily find the data with the amount of effort I'm willing
| to put in.
|
| Here's a histogram though
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Histogram-of-
| estimated-n...
| madcaptenor wrote:
| A rare example of a naturally occurring left-skewed
| distribution.
| sophacles wrote:
| Not that naturally - until fairly recently it was
| bimodal. Fortunately we've dramatically reduced the
| number of infant and childhood deaths in the last ~100
| years.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _Life expectancy for men in the US is about 74 to 76 years_
|
| that's life expectancy _at birth_. The life expectancy of a
| man who is 70 yo today, having already not died of all the
| causes that harvest young men, is 13+ years more (without
| accounting for other aspects of their demographic)
|
| https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
| basil-rash wrote:
| Yes. "an illness he was being treated for suddenly worsened"
| aseipp wrote:
| Sad news, I've learned a lot from some of his old course notes
| and would come across papers coauthored by him. Take care Arvind,
| I'll write some Bluespec this week in your honor!
| neilv wrote:
| @dang Black band, and change HN post title to the article's
| current title, "Arvind, longtime MIT professor and prolific
| computer scientist, dies at 77"?
| pizlonator wrote:
| So sad! Rest in peace.
|
| I got to meet him in his office and have dinner with him once. It
| was an unforgettable and hugely influential experience.
|
| Two fun anecdotes that have never left me:
|
| - He taught me that IPIs (inter-processor interrupts) are
| inherently and hugely expensive. Knowing this has helped me with
| architectural choices more times than I can count.
|
| - He quoted (I think from someone else) a rebuttal to the idea
| that Physics is the reality and math is just theory. It goes
| something like: _Math is the reality that physicists sometimes
| discover_. Love it.
| denotational wrote:
| > IPIs (inter-processor interrupts) are inherently and hugely
| expensive
|
| I'd be interested to hear more about this.
| sriram_sun wrote:
| This is about 25 yrs. back. As a grad student, I used to stumble
| into his papers pretty regularly. Later, I'd scan for author name
| and pay a lot more attention if it was by Arvind (also a few
| others). I'd always smile after looking at the author name.
| Growing up in India, your last name doesn't mean much.
| daghamm wrote:
| His lectures were fun, and he made complex things look easy. I
| frequently consulted his lecture notes at my first jobs.
|
| RIP Arvind
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(page generated 2024-06-19 23:01 UTC)