Posted by tpc at July 16th, 2009

There is this nice story that I read about Gorenstein’s chauffeur, google tells me that it came from Sarah Flannery’s book called “in code”. Below is the text lifted off the web.

“In the course of a long lecture tour, the famous American mathematician Daniel Gorenstein was chauffeur driven to various venues around the USA. While Gorenstein lectured his chauffeur sat in the back row of the auditorium. In time the chauffeur became so familiar with the material (her comments: and it was pretty deep stuff) that he joked to Gorenstein, “At this stage, I reckon I could give the lecture myself.”

One evening, Gorenstein was scheduled to speak at a small university where he guessed his face wouldn’t be known. Feeling particularly tired, the master hit upon the idea of the chauffeur to give the lecture while he would rest in the back row. The lecture went off without a hitch, at the end the chauffeur answered without hesitation all the questions, which he heard asked and answered hundreds of times before; all, that is accept for one last question which left him entirely at a loss.

After momentary panic, he composed himself and said., “I believe that question is so simple even my chauffeur could answer it.” The dozing chauffeur shamed the questioner with an immediate reply.”

Anyway, since the title of this post is in plural, there is another chauffeur story. Namely, I was privileged today to be chauffeur to none other than Serre. Can I put that in my vita?