| Peter spent years studying "higher mathematics." He eventually specialized in something in Number Theory called Diophantine equations (which limits possible solutions by restricting infinite possibilities by various means). After thinking about a problem for Bonneville Power, a Northwest electrical supplier, regarding estimates of usage -- involving equations of 250 variables of the second degree -- for about three-quarters of a year, he and a teacher came up with a means by which guesses at 75 or so of the components could be refined, even in the early days of computers, with other elements picked up as the microchips clattered on. |
| This "Stafford-Roberts regurgitive" resulted in a job where he was expected "to think." The room had a steel desk with chair, a pad of paper and a waste basket. |
| But then someone in the Pentagon got wind of this project, and within three days Peter freaked. Strangely, he used classes in medieval Islamic issues (there's much yet to be uncovered there) as a kind of escape route. |
| The career move here, from a well-paid job to a more marginal existence, may well have been influenced by Peter's acquaintance with peyote, which had begun about six months earlier. |
| At any rate, Peter did leave the field of mathematics a few days after learning of the Pentagon inquiries. He says now that he's noticed that regarding math, in over forty years he's since never had occasion to use anything but "addition, subtraction, multiplication and division." |
| Peter has observed that he favors "plunging necklines" (meaning one more button unbuttoned than is usual). This also is odd in that he was born with "a crushed chest." That's probably due to his twin sister as an embryo sitting within him. His father, after a half-century estrangement, was astonished that he had much of a chest at all! |
| What he favors, after going to "Woodstock" and lots of Be-Ins and Rainbow Gatherings and so on, is "running around naked and taking all the drugs I can." |
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| (More to come) |
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