February 1, 1994

Mathematician Colin Conrad Adams, a specialist in hyperbolic 3-manifolds and knot theory, lecturing as his character “Mel Slugbate” spoke on “Real Estate in Hyperbolic Space.” A widely respected expositor of mathematics to general audiences, Dr. Adams appeared as the sleazy real estate agent Slugbate, who, while peddling his real estate—elucidated the nature of hyperbolic space, a type of non-Euclidean geometry.

Adams’s The Knot Book: An Elementary Introduction to the Mathematical Theory of Knots appeared in 1994, and in 1998 he was awarded the Haimo Distinguished Teaching Award from the Mathematical Association of America, awarded to mathematicians who are “extraordinarily successful in their teaching” and who “have had an influence beyond their own institutions.”