Memory
A Firm Mathematical Proof
I fondly remember a number of humorous experiences with Henry. One of the most vivid is an incident in a statistical mechanics class. He was busy deriving a partition function which had in the denominator N! I questioned the reasoning behind incorporation of N!, whereupon Henry patiently went through the derivation again. I still was not satisfied and responded with, “intuitively, it does not make sense.” Henry, with all the patience he could muster, turned to me and said: “John, N! needs to be there, and I’m going to tell you five more times. That will constitute a proof.”