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Benjamin Levitt (Fri)

August 21, 2015 By Benjamin Levitt

Another confession to end the week: Fridays over the summers are half-days. (The other days are a little longer, but worth it.)

In keeping with this spirit, I’ll make this a short post, so we can all grab a drink and still beat the crowds to the subway.

I’ll be going through my notes from the last conference today and following up on all the conversations I had. This might just be thanking someone for their time, or it could be forwarding a formal proposal form, or checking the sales figures for someone’s old book. There’s much deciphering of my hurried handwriting and abbreviations, and then pledges to stop scrawling my notes in the margins of conference programs. (Did I really scribble “Topeka” next to someone’s name? Ah, no, more likely a reminder about their project on topological K-theory.)

I have a meeting with a production manager to discuss some issues with an eBook version of a title off my backlist and then a meeting with my assistant editor to talk about our plan for trying to resurrect some projects that have been in an extended state of limbo since before either of us joined the company. It would be more interesting, both for this post and for my life, if these strategies were along the lines of, “First, why don’t you try to track down this author at this conference in Italy, and, if you can’t manage to get a chapter or two from them, I’ll fly ahead to Singapore, where their student is giving a talk and work that angle.” But they’re more like, “When was the last time we heard from them? Ok, I’ll email first and then you can try.” Alas. One day, perhaps I’ll work with an author who hides out in an undersea fortress.

Friday’s are pretty light, evidently, especially in the late summer. It’s in between conference season and the start of the semester, when my European colleagues are replaced with automated out-of-office replies. I can catch up on the work from the spring and plan for the fall in relative peace.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my posts this week. I’ve had fun writing them.

Benjamin Levitt (Thurs)
Pallavi Phartiyal | One Year Later

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Benjamin Levitt, PhD

Editor, Mathematics
Birkhäuser (Springer)


PhD, Mathematics and Statistics

Tate-Shafarevich Groups of Jacobians of Fermat Curves

Univeristy of Arizona, 2006

Connect with Benjamin

My professional philosophy in a nutshell:

Be open, be generous, be creative, and be calm.

Which is more important: luck, smarts, or know-how?

My mathematical instinct is to start with giving definitions of the three qualities and state the metric I'm using to measure importance. My cynical answer would be luck, but as someone giving advice I'd say know-how. Of course, for a blog, perhaps I should say all three: You need to be smart enough to apply your know-how when fortune provides the opportunity, etcetera.

Instead of any of that, I'll say that know-how is for sure the most important. Smarts won't hurt, but in the context of a profession, what is helpful is knowing how to get things done. Luck is good too, if you happen into some, but it's too elusive to spend any time or energy worrying about. (I once saw someone call two roulette tables in the span of ten minutes. He was not the least bit phased -- said he just got a feeling sometimes. I think that's the best attitude to have about luck of any flavor.)

Benjamin's "Week in the Life"

  • Benjamin Levitt (Fri)
  • Benjamin Levitt (Thurs)
  • Benjamin Levitt (Wed)
  • Benjamin Levitt (Tues)
  • Benjamin Levitt (Mon)
  • Benjamin Levitt | Birkhäuser (Springer)

The best career advice I ever received:

Plastics.

If I had to do it all over again, I would …

... All over? All of it? I'm not sure I'd change much. There was one time when I was supposed to go to a place where Bjork showed up just to hang out. I would go. Otherwise, I don't spend too much time on regret.

Mostly, it would be the same. Mistakes, frustrations, a terrible Italian car, wasted time, lost money, disappointments and all.
I would try to take more risks and worry less. I'm not sure I'd succeed in doing either; the attempt would be noble, though.

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