
Louis Nirenberg, ‘one of the great mathematicians,’ dies at 94 - Anon84
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/science/louis-nirenberg-dead.html
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lordnacho
> “He was very, very, very nice guy,” Dr. Fefferman said. “For a while,
> letters of recommendation from him were discounted, because he was such a
> nice guy that he didn’t want to say anything bad about anybody.”

Does anyone say anything that isn't super positive in recommendations? My
impression is they're an anachronism from a time when people were sincere.
Nowadays nobody wants get sued for being less than positive.

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throwlaplace
they simply say non-things such as "this person was in my class, they had rank
xyz, they came to office hours, etc."

before i knew how to ask for letters of rec (be sure to clarify explicitly
whether they're prepared to write you a strong letter of rec) i had a prof
fill 90% of the letter with his own biography (yes this was also the first
time that the letter writer sent me the letter he'd written).

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_hardwaregeek
His autobiography is a great read as well. It's absolutely incredible seeing
all the accomplished mathematicians Nirenberg collaborated with:
[https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-99028-6_...](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-99028-6_18?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=organic&utm_campaign=SRMT_1_AD02_LouisNirenberg)

