I'm trying to find the birth and death years for the mathematician
Jeffrey Hamilton. In the 70's he was a professor at Warwick University
and he may still be there. The following story is attributed to him:

"At one point he (Prof Hamilton) essayed to illustrate the basic
ideas by flipping a coin.  The class joined him in
watching the coin flip over and over and then land
on the floor---on its edge!  Hamilton later calculated
that the chances of this happening are one in one billion."

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Clarification of Question by mbhenry-ga on 25 May 2004 14:30 PDT

Ok, I've only been able to confirm that Hamilton lectured at Warwick
in October of 1972. I'm not positive that he was actually a professor
there.

I'm adding a $5.00 tip for an answer. I realize now that this one is pretty hard.

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Clarification of Question by mbhenry-ga on 16 Jun 2004 13:14 PDT

Actually, I'm looking for the birth year for the mathematician Per
Enflo instead of Jeffrey Hamilton. I'm sorry for the confusion.
mbhenry

Thanks for your message, Michael.

Per Enflo's birth year is 1944, according to the Swedish university
libraries union catalogue.

This is part of the entry for his PhD dissertation from the University
of Stockholm:

Enflo, Per, 1944-
Investigations on Hilbert's fifth problem for non locally compact groups.
Stockholm, 1970 ; (Stockholm : Kungl. boktr.)
dissertation note: 	Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Univ.

LIBRIS Database - Union Catalogue of Swedish libraries 
http://dijkstra.libris.kb.se/english/libris.html

(To reach the right entry, you have to enter Per Enflo, not P. Enflo,
nor Per H. Enflo.)

The LIBRIS catalogue seems like a reliable source, but there is also
some slight confirmation available:
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22per+enflo+1944%22&btnG=Google+Search

I'm glad you've got your information at last. The catalogue wasn't
working when I first looked for this! Let me know if you have any
problems with it.

Best Wishes - Leli


PS I notice there is contact information available for this writer,
who seems to know Jeffrey Hamilton:
http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/spinning.html

Magnificient answer!

Thank-you very much!

Leli