Ilan Vardi

Hello, I'm ilan and I would like to present myself, my wife Catherine,

our dog Hedwige ,

and our mascot Linux, who has his own blog.

I am a mathematician and am currently working on designing watches. You can reach me at ilan@chronomaitre.org.

• What is your Greek name? For example, if you're a Deborah then the Greek version of your name is Melissa.

  

  Another example, Amber becomes Electra.

  

  I'm happy about that one because the writers of the TV show House didn't think of it when they were trying to make convoluted subconscious references to the Amber character.

  

  Which leads to me: The name Ilan Vardi in Greek is rhododendron.

  

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• Rediscover the history of cycling in the Forgotten History of Paris Bicycles.

• French Hell.

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• The Intelligence of Dogs.

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  Dumb & Dumber?

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• More hurricane disinformation or how the media insists on distorting the figures.

• On our recent trip to the South, we were involved in the Rita exodus, which allowed us to experience first hand the disparity between reality and what is reported in the media. Read about Katrina and Rita disinformation.

• My pi proof makes it to USA Today in the Wonderquest column written by April Holladay.

• I was very unhappy by the complete acceptance by the French media of L'Equipe's accusation of Lance Armstrong. It seems to me that the French are very slow in defending a person's rights. In response, I wrote an article which I have titled J'accuse !, as well as an English version.

• After having read Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, I finally wrote up my ideas on wizard origins in the Harry Potter universe.

• What do 40 years of life experience add up to? Answer: I just realized today, May 27, 2004, that the name of the bard Assurancetourix in Asterix is a reference to "assurance tous risques" but for the last 40 years (exactly!) I had thought this was referring to "assurance touriste".
  

  What do 25 years of life experience add up to? Answer: When I was about 10 years old, I was at a Passover celebration and upon leaving, noted that there was a lunar eclipse. Everyone, including myself, was amazed at this coincidence, what were the odds of an eclipse, and on Passover too! Well, when I was a man of 35, I became interested in elementary astronomy questions, and it occured to me that a lunar eclipse can only occur on a full moon, and that Passover, by definition, is on a full moon, since it falls on the 15th of Nissan, and the Jewish calendar months actually correspond to the phases of the moon (as opposed to the normal calendar whose months are totally meaningless). Therefore, I figured, the odds of a lunar eclipse are at least 10 times higher than for any other date.

  What do 13 more years of life experience add up to? Answer: I find myself even wiser, since I now have at my disposal the power of the World Wide Web which has allowed me to discover that there were total lunar eclipses on the night of Passover in 1967 and 1968, as can be checked using this Nasa table and this Jewish Calendar conversion program. This goes to show that the odds of having a lunar eclipse on Passover are not at all shabby. Unfortunately, I have now forgotten which one of these I witnessed, which is the downside of 37 or 38 years of life experience.

• The Bewitched curse:
  • Elizabeth Montgomery (Samantha): died age 62 of colorectal cancer.
  • Dick York (Darrin #1): died age 63 of emphysema.
  • Dick Sargent (Darrin #2): died age 64 of prostate cancer.
  • Alice Pierce (Gladys Kravitz #1): died age 48 of ovarian cancer.
  • Paul Lynde (Uncle Arthur): died age 55 of cardiac arrest due to extreme substance abuse.

  To add to the mystery, there is the French version of the program known as "Ma Sorciere Bien Aimee". For reasons that remain unclear Darrin is renamed Jean-Pierre and Larry Tate becomes Alfred Tate.

• Harry Houdini's real name was Weiss, and he was played in the movie by Tony Curtis, whose real name was Schwartz.

  Yo! Just published by the Internet Movie Data Base, see here.

  This discovery finally enabled me to come to terms with my disillusionment when seeing the movie Wayne's World in 1992. They noted there that the first Darrin in Bewitched is Dick York the second is Dick Sargent, and then there is Sergeant York. I couldn't believe that I had all the information at my disposal for over 20 years but I never made the connection.

I have also been interested in becoming MATHTER OF THE GAME. That's why you may know me from from

Yahoo Dots, where play as ilanpi.

I have written a Dots page, which might help your game. I also wrote up my deep thoughts about the game and its relationship to mathematics.

When I was a kid, all I did was play Chess. This is me losing to future grandmaster Kevin Spraggett in the final round of the 1975 Montreal Open (but hey, I tied for first).

In 2003, I started learning Go. I am approximately 1 Dan on the Korean server Cyberoro.



I have had some deep thoughts about the game of go, including how to to deal with dirty books.

Speaking of Go books, I wrote a review of the novel La Joueuse de Go.

I've heard that Linux is the best operating system and so the best platform for playing Go. I've looked into this question, see my Linux and Go page.

All of this inspired Catherine to write The Mathta Rap and Linux to record his deep thoughts, where you can hear him speak!!

Apart from that, my main interest for the last few decades has been cycling, with some very weird side effects (view at your own risk). Last year, I had some experiences trying to see the arrival of the Tour de France. I also checked out the arrival of the Grande Boucle Internationale, AKA the Women's Tour de France.

Cycling in Paris pretty much sucks, so I have taken up roller skating.

At my advanced age, it took me a long time to teach myself how to skate. You can also read about my skates

Actually, I had to stop using those skates, because they didn't give me enough support. I just got a new set of skates which are much better and I've been enjoying skating again. You can read about this skate here.

Here I am with them in Hermosa Beach, California, September 2004.

Once, I tried out a Parisian group skate, check out my story Skates and Snails.

Watch out for those cobbles though! They are omnipresent when you learn to skate in Paris.

I like to hang out in Parisian cafes like the Cafe de Flore. Here is my buddy Bruno about to exercise his style on the nearest babes.

Otherwise you can find out more than you would ever want to know about it on my other web site with its list of my deep thoughts on all types of topics. For everything else see Catherine.

Yes, Catherine is my wife of almost four years now, and we live in perfect marital bliss in Paris with our virtual family, Linux, Hedwig, Chilly Willy, and Jeanne.

On November 27, 2004, we adopted Hedwige a West Highland White Terrier. Read all about her here. Here is Catherine holding her for the first time

Catherine and I travel a lot. For example, we just took a trip to Malta

I found "Little Wizard" in a discount shop in Valletta.

You may note the vague resemblance to Harry Potter, like the glasses, robes, wand, and broom. But that's a complete coincidence, the Harry Potter name doesn't appear anywhere on the box. Speaking of which, I later found myself in a recreation of Diagon Alley

That was on a recent trip to London, check out the pictures. Oh, and I am Canadian.

In 2005, we came back to the race, under much colder conditions and with our dog Hedwige. See this report.