November 2007, Kopavogur.

December 27, 2006, Reykjavik.

Americans nuked Moscow. More precisely, they nuked Vorob'evy Gory and the building of the Moscow State University. In retaliation, Russians nuked New York, Toronto, London, and Tel-Aviv. The targets were chosen according to a plan deviced at 70s by Soviet generals. At that point Americans and Russian reached agreement and stopped.

I was at Tel-Aviv at that time. The tall buildings surrounding some central square were destroyed. There were a very quickly organized emergency air fields, alternative roads, a lot of activity and movement everywhere. Some temporary galleries were emerged to pass around the square, and a lot of by-standers were sitting, staying and walking on those galleries. Because the landscape changed drastically, I could not figure out in which direction is the road to Ramat-Gan, and made circle after circle around those galleries.

I was very concerned that all issues of the Vestnik MGU, Mathematics series, being stored in the Moscow University building, are destroyed, and now the mankind would loose all the mathematical discoveries published there - notably those of Razmyslov about varieties uniquely determined by simple algebras.

December 10, 2005, Ramat-Gan.

December 13, 2004, Amsterdam.

July 8, 2004, Amsterdam.

Разразилась очередная война сил добра и зла, и я, как принято у добпропорядочных граждан маленькой империи добра временно пребывающих за ее пределами, устремился на родину. Война, как и все предыдущие, была короткой и вроде бы победоносной, и я успел к самому концу.

Было взято множество пленных сражавшихся на стороне сил зла, и среди них ashuutanor. Я было позлорадствовал в душе, но потом устыдился, и носил ему украдкой в тюрьму Physical Rev. D из библиотеки Тель-Авивского университета.

April 3, 2002, Bat-Yam.

I am moving together with other people down some road, surrounded by hills. Sometimes it is crowdy, sometimes only a few figures are visible on the whole road. Each one moves with it's own pace, groups formed and brake, sometimes someone even climbes on surronding hills, but at large everybody is moving in one direction.

Sometimes this movement is rather peaceful, sometimes it is dangerous - one should beware that nobody can stick you with a knife from the back, or just give an unpleasant push. Sometimes, on the contrary, you may cooperate with your neighbors and discuss current issues.

I am bothered with this necessity to move down the road in one direction, and trying to understand what is going on. I climb on one of the surrounding hills, and see some adjacent road leading to a small town. Apparently some other my fellows discovered this adjacent road, as they tried to approach this town - to no avail, as it is guarded by two rows of guards. The forward row looks like a peasants - armed with pitchforks, shovels and brooms. It is clear that they are not real peasants, and this is somewhat frightening. The second row looks more like a real guards from a second-rate science fiction movie - with glaring helmets covering the head, terrifyingly looking automatic weapon, etc. This diversity of guards resembles some Harry Harrison's novels (this is a part of the dream - that is, I think about it in the dream).

The town itself looks very quiet. In fact, it is organized in such a way, that it is almost impossible to see what is inside, despite there is no visible surrounding walls. I am trying to enter the town. This involves classical adventures of such sort - jumping, climbing, hiding when these terrifying guards are passing through, etc. It took like half of the day.

Finally I am inside the town, but guards know that somebody leaked inside and trying to chase me. I am running along the street, and meet some strangely-looking girl which helps me to hide in her apartment. Then simultaneously the following happens: first, it became clear that the girl has some strange conflict with their neighbors, second, that the citizens of the town at whole have some large trouble, and third, some person appears with a message that Nathan Jacobson is hunting after me and I am in a big danger.

As everybody around me seem to be occupied with their troubles and nobody pays attention to me, I can exit from the house to the street and try to undertake something against Jacobson. The messenger follows me. A bus arrived, and Jacobson is hiding behind the bus. He wears a black suit, black glasses and has a few very big black suitcases. He resembles (not in look, but in spirit) the "fioleteovo-polosatyi hvatatel'" from one of the Robert Sheckley's stories (this again, I think in the dream).

Simultaneously and very quickly, Jacobson trying to approach me (with apparently evil aims), I am trying to escape him, and the messenger shouts in a very loud and terrifying voice "Here is Jacobson, here he is!" and shoots him to death.

Me and messenger starting to explore the content of Jacobson's suitcases. It contains a lot of books, all non-mathematical and many of them with the stamp of the Moscow State University library (what makes me think for a moment that this is actually not Jacobson, but Kostrikin), a lot of invoices from hotels around the world, some interesting small things like coins and japanese souvenirs. No material of Lie-algebraic character, what disappoints me.

Nevertheless, I want to sort all these things, take a part of them, return books to the library, etc., but understand that I have no time for this due to a very turmoil events hapenning around me, like the following:

The girl which saved me in the first place, runs from the house and back few times, followed by some neighbors. Each time when they return back to the house, they have 4 arms. They seem to be ashamed by this fact, trying to hide an extra pair of arms. I understand that this is the reason of their conflict.

Besides, all the citizens of the town seem to be on high alert due to some external danger and something like draft to military forces began. The call-up papers are distributed among the citizens, and I receive one. All who received call-up papers, accumulated in front of some big door, and I am sure that this is my former fellows from the road finally managed to burst into the town, now the door will open, and we will start to clash with them.

But I was wrong. The door opened, and we followed down some corridor to a big classroom. Apparently this is a preparatory class for military intelligence, or something like that. The class starts with projecting of some big moving color pictures on the wall, and in the small corner - with some elementary arithmetic examples.

I finally understand were I am - in some strange parallel civilization, whose inhabitants are humans from physiological point of view (well, almost, if don't take into account such small details like spontaneously appearing extra pair of arms), but very different from mental, intellectual and social ones. For example, despite rather high level of technology they developed, the ability to perform arithmetic calculations is considered as a high intellectual achievment related to military secrets, and should be taught by unusual methods. Also, probably, Jacobson from this parallel world was affiliated with the Moscow State University and didn't deal with Lie algebras.

I realize that if I will be a part of their civilization, some interesting possibilities will emerge, but it will be not at all easy, and I should be on constant alert.

July 25, 1998, Kiryat-Ono.

I saw everything from two points of view: one (let's call it "big") as some above-all figure which sees and knows everything across space and time (like a small local God, or author of this story, whatever...), and another (let's call it "small") is just one of several people taking part in the story. Both were me, simultaneously.

I "big" know that the Earth stopped to revolve (around its axis that is, not around the Sun). This does not and will not lead to some planet disaster, as one may suppose, but will result in some unusual phenomena here and there, some of which are quite annoying and may pose serious problems in some areas of human activity (will see later...).

I "small" am just living everyday life in some house with several other people. I feel that something strange, weird and may be dangerous happens, but have no idea what. During sunset, I see a few suns across the horizon, and a few moons rising. Very nice from aesthetical point of view, but a little bit frightening. I try to appeal to other people, but they don't pay attention to it, nobody seems to notice that something unusual happens.

Programs do not compile! (That was gcc of course). Arghhh... Finally other people realize that something is going wrong. Nothing changed in makefiles, general setup, anything, but what happily compiled yersteday, just stopped to compile today! I am sure that this has something to do with unusual natural phenomena. I "small" undertook a deep investigation and found out what's the matter:

During compilation, one should take into account the Coriolis force. To be succesfully linked, some libraries should sit not where they should sit "theoretically", but taken into account a small delta caused by this force. Because Earth stopped to revolve, Coriolis force is no longer in action, and this "delta" prevents linker to recognize some necessary libraries.

(Of course, I "big" knew that from the very beginning...)