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In my umpteenth pseudo-serious attempt at getting back into shape, I decided to go to the pool yesterday. I started the day by eating a light snack and had half a liter of water, packed my goggles, shorts and swimming cap (all of which are required at the local pool), put on my coat and bicycled my way to the pool. I didn’t have an classes that day. The pool sounded like a splendid idea.

The pool itself was located in the basement floor of the local gymnasium. Yes, an indoor swimming pool. Olympic standards and all. Looking the people swimming on my way to the changing room, I noticed that the closest person to my age group was around 55. A swim with the elderly, I thought to myself. How energizing.

Before getting into the pool, I did some stretching exercises. There were a few older men next to me who were doing the same, as they chit-chatted about what older men at the pool usually chit-chatted about. One of them noticed that I smiled as they were exchanging some jokes between themselves. He asked me I could understand Japanese or not. When I told him I did, he suddenly continued speaking to me in perfect English. Plain weird, but sounded genuine. We made small talk and he told me that he was a well-published Mathematician named Furuta. I remember, actually, hearing about a theory in one of my Calculus classes in my undergraduate years that was also named “Furuta”. An uncanny coincidence. I had no idea I was in the presence of a man who had a mathematical theory named after him, and when I did, I had no idea what the implications of such a scenario would be. How is one supposed to address someone in goggles, shorts and a swimming cap and had a famous mathematical theory named after him? Was he Furuta the swimmer or Furuta the Mathematical legend? As I wasn’t completely sure, I decided to play it all by ear and see where the events and conversations would take us.

When we got into the pool, he first told me that his theory took him twenty years to complete, and that the entire theory and its justification - at the end of those twenty long years - were all written into a single sheet of paper. We both acknowledged this with a silence that was somehow trying to demystify a moral behind this fact.

From there, we just went our own ways for a while, perfecting our strokes and crawls and whatever those swimming techniques are call. He challenged me to a game of “who has better technique”. He won, hands down, but I quickly learned and ended up doing whatever he was doing almost just as well. I guess I still have youth on my side.

At the end of the two-hour swim, he came up to me and told me a few funny facts about himself.

He was 72 years old. He was an editor of many mathematical publications and has been to over 80 countries to discuss his ideas (but hasn’t been to mine!). Interestingly, he learned to swim at the age of 68! He wrote an essay for a competition about why he decided to learn to swim at the young age of 68, and won first place.

After the pool, he asked me if I had the time to visit the local public library to show me the books he had published. When we entered the library, the librarian on duty greeted him (seems as though they knew each other quite well; had he had led many foreign students into the public library to show them his books? I wonder.), he darted to the mathematics section and pulled out his four published books (all of which were autographed by him). It was interesting.

At the end of this chance meeting, we just shook hands and wished each other the best of luck. He told me that he will be in the pool at the same time the following week.

Here are some of the links he showed me at the library to things about him:

1. A Biography (in Japanese)

2. His “How I Finally Learned to swim 25 meters at the age of 68″ Essay