fgdorais's comments

The relevant book Computability in Analysis and Physics by Pour-El and Richards is from 1989 but it is quite readable. The main requirements are a strong mathematical background (mostly in analysis and PDEs and an acquaintance with computability theory) and perhaps some appreciation for physics.

This is better known as the Table Maker's Dilemma.

Say you have some computable number p, that means you can compute a (rational) approximation p' to p within any given tolerance eps > 0 (i.e. you know |p - p'| < eps). To determine whether p > 0, p = 0, or p < 0, you compute an approximation p' to a certain tolerance eps. If p' > eps then you know p > 0, if p < -eps then you know p < 0, otherwise you need a better approximation... Without further knowledge about p, there is no point where you can assert p = 0.

Universal Basic Water would be a great achievement!

There are a lot of "forgiveness rules" but they are tricky. I think you need to consult a lawyer to assess the exact situation. I hope this works out!

I'm not the expert here, but AOS only applies when you're currently in the US. Has this person been in the US for over a decade without a valid status?

FWIW, my pathway was: F1, TN1, J1, H1B, green card over a period of 19.5 years... I'm thinking that wasn't optimal :-)

This is more of a historical question. I have a green card now so this is not currently relevant to me.

I wonder about the use of H1B vs O1 in academia. When I was doing postdocs in the US, I was often told that O1 was not the best route and H1B was easier (edit: for permanent positions). I learned from older colleagues that O1 was actually more frequent in their time (probably in the 90s). This is hearsay, of course, but I heard it often enough that seems somewhat accurate. What changed and could the H1B vs O1 balance change in the future?

What if the visitors are from November of this year?

Anil Nerode is almost surely the oldest working computer scientist today - https://math.cornell.edu/anil-nerode - He technically is in the math department at Cornell but he has been there since well before Cornell had a computer science department.