Graduate school colleague Albert Meyer, who co-authored two papers with Dennis, had his own experience with dmr social distancing. In a September 2018 interview with David Brock, Meyer recounted how difficult it was to establish a connection with him.
We do have some actual evidence of what was happening in Dennis’s life during his graduate school years.
First are his official graduate school records… lots of juicy stuff here!
Dennis’s grad school application, written in 1963, is a heartfelt essay that reveals his intellectual passions and also his foibles. “I can, for instance, imagine myself working on switching systems for the telephone company, developing new languages for communication with computers, or working on the logical design of a new computer”, he concludes.