Daniel Quillen
Daniel Quillen, who won the Field Medal in 1978, passed on April 30, 2011. As a young Moore Instructor at MIT, I went to his office to ask him for advice on doing research. He said that to read a paper and learn something new, he had to find a way to get at it. He said it often lay on his desk for a week or two before he could find a way to approach it.
Incidentally, he was an excellent lecturer. His blackboards, including his writing, were works of art.
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