Rota's Ten Math problems I will nevers solve

[thk (Tom H. Koornwinder)]

Rota's Ten Math problems I will nevers solve

The 2/98 issue of the journal
"Mitteilungen der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung"
has a "Sonderbeilage zum ICM'98 in Berlin" called
"Zukunft der Mathematik". One of the contributors (in English) is
Gian-Carlo Rota with the title "Ten Mathematics Problems I will never solve"
(Invited address at the joint meeting of the American Mathematical Society
and the Mexican Mathematical Society, December 6, 1997).
His fourth Problem is "A unified theory of special functions",
his eighth Problem is "Confluent symmetric functions".

Concerning Problem 4 he has a funny comment:
Lately, q-analogs have come into high fashion. They have been ennobled
by the name "quantum groups", even though they are neither quantum nor groups.
Thirty years ago, those half dozen of us who worked on q-analogs were looked
at with deep suspicion. More than sixty years ago, the Reverend F.H. Jackson,
who was at that time probably the only person working on q-analogs, stormed
out of the lecture room when someone in the audience made an unpleasant
comment on q-analogs, and he never finished delivering his lecture
on the q-analog of the gamma function.


			Tom Koornwinder
			thk@wins.uva.nl