Ancestry

There's a database of high-energy physics papers called SPIRES. If you click on the HEPNAMES section and type "find seligman, william" you'll see my entry; it can lead you to the physics papers with my name on it (only one of which I wrote).

What's interesting is that you'll also see my thesis advisor. Click on his name, and you'll see his advisor. If you keep clicking, you'll go through my "genealogy" of advisors all the way back to Otto Mencke (1644 –1707), the founder of the first scientific journal in Germany: Acta Eruditorum (the acts/reports of the scholars). The SPIRES database has copies of all published physics-related papers from then until now.

So here's to Great^15-grandpa Otto, founder of a line that includes me and almost everyone I've worked with at Nevis Labs

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