Phillip Reed Cotter

Among the coterie of class of 1978 mathematics majors, Phil Cotter stood out as the natural, someone who seemed to learn the most abstruse mathematics effortlessly. If he arrived at Yale without the advanced preparation some others had, he closed the gap within months and was absorbing mathematics that would challenge a strong graduate student by the end of his freshman year. We all expected great things, but everyone I knew soon lost track of him. I feel very sad to read of his passing and...

For several years, my best friend. An inspiration and intellectual stimulation to all who knew him; an explorer in his imagination of spaces and structures and symmetries few of us can glimpse, now exploring the unconditioned and boundless, now free from the bonds of this world.

He was the sweetest, loveliest man. May he rest in good peace.

Jay Rosenblum