Liber Amicorum Richard “Dick” Allen Askey — a Friendship Book —
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Liber Amicorum Richard “Dick” Allen Askey — A Friendship Book — from Dick’s colleagues and friends September 15, 2019 Madison, Wisconsin Dick Askey 1 Liber Amicorum Dick Askey Second Edition Editors: Howard S. Cohl [email protected] Mourad E. H. Ismail [email protected] Local Support (in Madison, Wisconsin): Paul Terwilliger [email protected] Diego Dominici [email protected] Suzanne Askey [email protected] Jim Zurlo [email protected] Table of Contents: Foreword 4 1. Krishnaswami Alladi: my association with Richard Askey 5 2. George Andrews: grateful beyond words 11 3. Herman Bavinck: Fifty years ago 12 4. Bruce Berndt: myriad of beautiful ideas given to us 13 5. Gaurav Bhatnagar: thank you, Dick 14 6. Nick Bingham: I just wrote a paper on Gaussian processes—whatever they are 17 7. Ron Boisvert: some photos related to the DLMF 18 8. Larry Braden: changed my entire life in one instant 19 9. David Bressoud: to come hear my 10-minute talk on the Rogers identities 19 10. Richard Brualdi: welcome at the 80th birthday conference of Dick Askey 20 11. Bill Y. C. Chen: gratitude to you for your encouragement and inspiration 21 12. Yang Chen: encyclopedic knowledge, deep insight, generosity 27 13. Ted Chihara: the world of OP needs old dinosaurs like you and me 28 14. Jacob Stordal Christiansen: maybe one day you can help a young person 28 15. Howard Cohl: among the most important facts known about these functions 29 16. William Connett: the torrent of information that came out of the phone 31 17. Shaun Cooper: it was as if Dick had direct access to Riemann 32 18. Persi Diaconis: what my old colleagues Pólya, Szegő, and Dick Askey had to say! 34 19. Karl Dilcher: one of those rare pivotal moments in my career 35 20. Atul Dixit: lucky enough to have witnessed one such 36 21. Diego Dominici: how Dick Askey taught me to add 37 22. Kathy Driver: you are looking at the zeros of scaled/shifted ultraspherical polynomials 39 23. Charles Dunkl: now I am not even afraid of 5퐹4’s 40 24. Loyal Durand: positivity problems to be explored—fun for a physicist! 41 25. Harold Edwards: formidable contributions to the mathematics that we all love 42 26. Ismor Fischer: another feather in your overflowing cap 43 27. Dominique Foata: the pope of Special Functions 43 28. Jet (Wimp) Foncannon: many distant and exotic places we have celebrated together 44 29. Cyndi & Frank Garvan: only true friends will leave footprints on your heart 44 30. George Gasper: thinking of you and thanking you 46 31. Walter Gautschi: the conjecture of Bieberbach has become a theorem 51 32. Bill Gosper: a thunderbolt from Dick prompted an extraordinary invitation 52 33. F. Alberto Grünbaum: beyond my wildest dreams 52 2 34. Michael D. Hirschhorn: I had forgotten that 53 35. Mahouton Norbert Hounhonnou: sincere greetings and wishes 54 36. Plamen Iliev: beautiful blend of mathematics inspired by your work 54 37. Mourad E. H. Ismail: the person I turn to for help, advise, or inspiration 55 38. Warren P. Johnson: he is irreplaceable 57 39. Anatol Kirillov: a great Mathematician and Person 59 40. Tom H. Koornwinder: germs for multi-variable analogues 60 41. Christian Krattenthaler: Richard has always been like that, already as a young man! 67 42. Zhi-Guo Liu: professor Askey’s influence on me in mathematics 68 43. Lisa Lorentzen and Frode Rønning: admired your profound knowledge 71 44. Daniel W. Lozier: elicited a spirited and useful interaction with the audience 72 45. Doron Lubinsky: laid the ground for so many subsequent developments 74 46. Robert Maier: otherwise have remained unchanged, if not embedded in amber 74 47. Leonard Maximon: happy to share information and knowledge 75 48. Willard Miller, Jr.: Dick Askey helped me in many ways 75 49. Stephen Milne: a true inspiration to me my entire career 76 50. Victor H. Moll: First of all, the name is Dick 76 51. Paul Nevai: Dick and I have a deep secret 77 52. Peter Olver: brilliance, insight, enthusiasm for mathematics, and strong opinions 81 53. Ken Ono: the significant roles you played in my life 82 54. Peter Paule: the writer must be a leader in the field! 83 55. Veronika Pillwein: I had the feeling, he will see right through the result 86 56. Mizan Rahman: I doubt I would ever have any reason to consider the thought 87 57. Donald Richards: a tall smiling man approached me and introduced himself 88 58. Hjalmar Rosengren: you should look at the 10푊9! 89 59. Ranjan Roy: Euler’s evaluation of a certain hypergeometric series 90 60. Michael J. Schlosser: thanks a lot for serving as an idol and inspiration! 93 61. Susan Sclafani: broke down some of the barriers between views 95 62. James Sellers: many thanks for your lifelong commitment to mathematics 95 63. Barry Simon: clearly a labor of love for you 96 64. Alan Sokal: an inspiring 18th-century mathematician 96 65. Slava Spiridonov: classify the above 푞-beta integrals 97 66. Dennis Stanton: an exciting time to be a student 98 67. Sergeĭ Suslov: you always have been American royalty for me and my students 100 68. Nico Temme: Dick’s enthusiasm was contagious 106 69. Paul Terwilliger: their attitude about you approaches hero worship 108 70. “Aek” Thanatipanonda: I am sorry that I did not say hi to you at JMM 109 71. Walter Van Assche: thanks Dick for your valuable advice 109 72. Luc Vinet: a modest tribute to Dick Askey, a friendly giant 110 73. Hans Volkmer: one of the most beautiful and useful areas in mathematics 112 74. Ole Warnaar and Wadim Zudilin: 푞-rious and 푞-riouser 113 75. Stephen Wainger: the field of mathematics owes Dick a huge debt 115 76. Patsy Wang-Iverson: you may find each other interesting 116 77. Lauren Williams: beautiful mathematics 118 78. Roderick S. C. Wong: a great leader in our field of special functions 119 79. Hung-Hsi Wu: accidentally dragged into the Math Wars in 1992 120 80. Doron Zeilberger: a special (and very important!) guru indeed 121 81. Alexei Zhedanov: I was born under the constellation of Askey 122 Bibliography 124 3 Foreword to Second Edition The original idea for giving a friendship book to Dick Askey during the Fall Sectional AMS Meeting in Madison, Wisconsin on September 14-15 2019, occurred on September 4, 2019 in an email dis- cussion between Mourad Ismail and Howard Cohl. After that, Howard and Mourad sent a bulk email to Dick’s colleagues, informing them of Dick’s grave situation. Henceforth, there was a great out- pouring of warmth and gratitude for Dick, and many contributions were received. Over the course of 10 days, these contributions were carefully assembled into a PDF document. After attending the last afternoon talk in the Special Session on Special Functions and Orthogonal Polynomials on Saturday, September 14 (organized by Sarah Post, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and Paul Terwilliger, University of Wisconsin-Madison), Dick Askey’s son, Jim Zurlo, drove Mourad Ismail and Howard Cohl to a FedEX store in Madison, Wisconsin. It was then arranged to print what ended up being a beautifully crafted edition of the Liber Amicorum, a Friendship Book for Dick Askey. This edition was 106 pages long and contained 63 separate contributions. A photo of the original Liber Amicorum, a Friendship Book for Dick Askey, which was presented in Madison, Wisconsin, on Sunday September 15, 2019. On Sunday September 15, 2019, after driving to the Chapel at Oakwood Village Prarie Ridge (East) in Madison (Dick’s current residence), all present signed the front page of the Friendship Book. The printed edition was presented to Dick in a beautiful ceremony lead and organized by Dick’s family, and in particular by Dick’s daughter Suzanne Askey. All present had a chance to speak and share their thoughts and feelings with Dick, and in response, Dick softly shared some stories with us. This final updated Friendship Book now includes some extra contributions. It is a collection of 81 heartfelt anecdotes in 133 pages marking Dick’s long service to our community. It is given from those of us who wanted to express our appreciation and gratitude to the friendly, generous, en- couraging, enthusiastic, inspiring, insightful, influential, irreplaceable, giant, leader, mathematician and person, Dick Askey. 4 Contribution #1 Liber Amicorum Dick Askey From: Krishna Alladi ([email protected]) Contributor: Krishnaswami Alladi: my association with Richard Askey My Association with Richard Askey, world authority on special functions and Ramanujan’s work Krishnaswami Alladi Richard Askey is a world leader in the field of special functions. In an illustrious ca- reer spanning six decades, he has greatly influenced the development of that subject by means of his own fundamental research and the work of numerous mathematicians he has groomed. He has also been instrumental, along with George Andrews and Bruce Berndt, in making the mathematical world aware of the wide ranging and deep contributions of Ramanujan. Although I have not collaborated with Professor Askey, I have had close inter- action with him for the past four decades. Indeed, my family and I have had the pleasure and privilege of hosting him and his wife both in Madras, India, and in Gainesville, Florida, several times. I first met him at the Summer Meeting of the AMS at the University of Michigan, Ann Ar- bor, in 1980. He was giving an hour lecture on the Selberg integral which I attended.