So who am I? My name is Thomas Shores, born in 1942. In May of 1968 I was awarded a PhD in mathematics and was married in December to my beloved Muriel, wife of 49 years. To me mathematics was an escape from an uncertain world to a world of calm and beautiful certainty, but my love of Muriel “made me human” and brought me back to the real world.
When working on my doctorate I didn’t know or care about what I was going to do with it, I only wanted to be a mathematician. Fortunately for me, I had just finished my thesis research in Spring 1967, and knew it was sufficient, even though I had not yet written it all up formally or consulted my advisor, when I met Muriel at a dinner party and it was love at first sight. Also, my advisor set up an interview at Nebraska where I accepted their offer, began work in the math department in January 1968 and remained for 42 years at UNL as a professor of mathematics.
My original intention for this site was simply to have a safe platform on which to distribute a calculator program which I wrote for students (or teachers or aficionados) of linear algebra. But upon inspecting all the other possibilities, I thought, “Why not?”. So l’ve start blogging and adding musings.
Tom Shores: Ends and Odds 