I just turned in my PhD thesis. Many people helped me get to this point. Here is the acknowledgements section:
I would like to thank everyone who made this research possible: my committee members - Olivier de Weck, Manuel Martinez-Sanchez, and Ray Sedwick - for providing advice as I navigated the depths of differential geometry; NASA and the MIT School of Engineering (through a TA position for 1.00) for providing funding as I worked through the mess of equations to create a small amount of order in the chaos of Newtonian gravity; my official readers Thomas Lang and Paulo Lozano for feedback as I completed my research; and my unofficial proofreaders Dale Winter, Rachel and Alan Fetters, Sarah Rockwell, and Allen Bryan for helping me to realize where my explanations needed more clarification.
I would like to thank my many friends for making life more enjoyable while I toiled on a seemingly endless task of translating PhD level theoretical math into moderately usable engineering concepts. I would especially like to thank the Boston change ringers for providing a steady rhythm in my life, Tech Squares for reminding me to peel off from my research and shoot the stars every now and then, Metaphysical Plant for reminding me that all hunts for knowledge are eventually completed, and MIT Hillel and TBS for the services and prayers that provided regular cycles in my life to mark the passage of time. I would like to thank my high school cross-country team for training me to have the endurance to keep going forever, my high school math club for encouraging me to study math beyond what I was taught, and the Cows for being good friends.
I would like to thank my parents for everything they have done: providing a good home for me to grow up in, encouraging me to explore the abstract world of ideas, letting me rush off to MIT where I got stuck for years in an endless maze of equations that I may have finally found a path through (suboptimal as it may have been), and most of all for teaching me the value of hard work, honesty, and persistence. I would like to thank my many siblings for living their lives so fully while I was too busy to do so on my own, providing me with many niblings to enjoy, and making the holidays so full of love and excitement. I would like to thank my in-laws for providing some local family and support as Mira and I toiled through the challenges of graduate school. I would like to thank my extended family for being a good and supportive family, and Mira's extended family for welcoming me so quickly and filling our lives with love and happiness. I would also like to thank my son Jesse for making the final months of this work much more exciting than they would have been without him.
And most of all I would like to thank my wife Mira, without whom I would never have made it all the way to the end. She has provided support and encouragement at every step of this process. I have learned how to move the heavens and the earth for her and I would like to remind her that some things really are rocket science. Melanyecce iluvòrënenya oio, mo bhean chéile luinnar silamiradilenya.
