R.I.P. Seth

Seth's brother, Alexander Bareiss, tells me has has found records of Seth's death.

I almost never go to funerals, even of good friends. Especially of good friends. I don't like to cry. I hate writing this.

I've thought of Seth of twin as well as my opposite.

As a high school student I went to Europe on a senior class trip. At that time I had resolved I would travel the globe and have stamps of every nation in my passport. I've done no such thing, 99.99% of my life has been spent within a 100 mile radius.

Seth, on the other hand was a world traveler and an adventurer. I believe he grew up in New York. Lived in Hawaii for a time, then Japan, then traveled throughout southern Asia. He spent some time in Thailand. Then back to Hawaii. I believe he loved immersing himself in other cultures and he gravitated towards the ocean. He was a scuba diver.

For me God's existence is the most self-evident axiom. But how do you share a self-evident axiom? I know of no way to share this deep belief, the closest thing I have to actually knowing anything.

Seth was an almost militant atheist.

You might think this would cause friction between us. But it was very refreshing to me that two people with diametricly opposite world views could remain friends. Seth even wrote a palindrome poem about it: Nature and Religion A Palindrome

We both shared a love of math, symmetry and art. We first became aware of each other in the late 1990s or early 2000s through Andrew Crompton's website.  At one time Crompton had a short list of 20 or so people in the world making Escher like Tessellations. Both Seth and I were very proud to be on Crompton's list.

When Seth hadn't answered my e-mails, I made an inquiry at a tilings mailing list to which we both belonged. I got back many responses, tessellators throughout the world had been looking for him!  Bruce Bilney and Robert Fathauer devoted a great deal of time and effort to the search.

When David Annal got sick he asked Seth to take over his website Tessellations.org. Seth did Dr. Annal proud and made the site a great internet resource for tessellations. Since Seth's passing, Kevin Lee has taken over. I hope this website will endure and prosper and Seth's memory will live on.

Seth had a Deviant Art page. He and I cofounded the Deviant Art Group M. C. Escher Style. After Seth was out of the picture Erwin Bonsma (aka Eriban) has been helping with M.C. Escher Style. I believe Seth would have approved.

Seth was very active in the World of Escher Forum (which I can't find a link to, maybe it no longer exists). World of Escher would conduct annual tessellation contests, mostly for kids. Seth wanted to have an annual tessellation contest, a collaboration between him, the World of Escher folks and myself. I'm sad this never came to pass.

I want to have a tesselation contest in Seth's memory.