Alva LaSalle "Beau"Kitselman, Genius Mathmatician
Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2023 5:37 pm
I am just beginning to dig into old and new records for Beau. Phil Young maintains The Kitselman Collection at https://kitselman.com.
Bea was the brilliant scion in a midwest family that made its wealth in barbed wire. "Beau" first came to the public eye as a child, when some national magazine/newspaper identified him as one of the smartest children in Los Angeles
He graduated from Babson College at the age of 19, having earned the title of GOAT in at least one class, Reportedly he had also developed a statistical method for stocks analysis by then.
According to family lore, he has said he spent WWII in a hotel room wearing earphones, though his bio states that he was working with Vega in Los Angeles. Beau also read Sanskrit. His book "The Time Teachers" is a translation of an ancient document in that language He was involved with the early computers, and is proclaimed to be the actual inventer of FORTRAN.
Later in life, he was on the West Coast, doing missile math. He is said to have audited classes with mathematician Uspensky at Stanford, though records buried in the Stanford archive record that a 3000 sq.', ten room house was rented to A.L. Kitselman, Jr. "and students" He also has said he spent some time in Hawaii teaching calculus to the dozen students who would build Townsend's Gravitor, ca 1947-49
He loved women and apparently, they loved him, as he had 3 or 4 wives and alimony and child support kept him broke, George, Townsend's SIL, recalls a cutting an insert for Beau's shoes on one of his visits to Catalina. He had not been able to could afford to get the hole in the sole repaired.
He lived his life with gusto. He promoted the Huna teachings of Max Freedom Long in the early fifties,but vibed perfectly with the sexually liberated California New Age scene a decade later. During that time, he was conducting psi research with persons under the influence of magic mushrooms and other psychedelics. To the shock and disapproval of his Mother and current wife, he hoped to turn the family's Pyramid Lake property in Nevada into a tripping spot/retreat center.
He was also friends with the Aldous Huxleys and L. Ron Hubbard, though the two later had a falling out.
He fancied himself a writer, but it wasn't his forte. Beau's novel, The Fuse, reads like the fantasies of a lustful young man.
Somewhere, along the line, perhaps during WWII, he and Townsend became besties and Beau would forever after be Townsend's number 1 booster and promoter.
Sidenote Acting on his desire to repay a debt, Babson would create the Gravity Research Foundation, in 1947 He had become wealthy using Newton’s laws of action and reaction and gravitation, to predict the stock market, and, as his giveback, funded awards to top researchers in the field.
Bea was the brilliant scion in a midwest family that made its wealth in barbed wire. "Beau" first came to the public eye as a child, when some national magazine/newspaper identified him as one of the smartest children in Los Angeles
He graduated from Babson College at the age of 19, having earned the title of GOAT in at least one class, Reportedly he had also developed a statistical method for stocks analysis by then.
According to family lore, he has said he spent WWII in a hotel room wearing earphones, though his bio states that he was working with Vega in Los Angeles. Beau also read Sanskrit. His book "The Time Teachers" is a translation of an ancient document in that language He was involved with the early computers, and is proclaimed to be the actual inventer of FORTRAN.
Later in life, he was on the West Coast, doing missile math. He is said to have audited classes with mathematician Uspensky at Stanford, though records buried in the Stanford archive record that a 3000 sq.', ten room house was rented to A.L. Kitselman, Jr. "and students" He also has said he spent some time in Hawaii teaching calculus to the dozen students who would build Townsend's Gravitor, ca 1947-49
He loved women and apparently, they loved him, as he had 3 or 4 wives and alimony and child support kept him broke, George, Townsend's SIL, recalls a cutting an insert for Beau's shoes on one of his visits to Catalina. He had not been able to could afford to get the hole in the sole repaired.
He lived his life with gusto. He promoted the Huna teachings of Max Freedom Long in the early fifties,but vibed perfectly with the sexually liberated California New Age scene a decade later. During that time, he was conducting psi research with persons under the influence of magic mushrooms and other psychedelics. To the shock and disapproval of his Mother and current wife, he hoped to turn the family's Pyramid Lake property in Nevada into a tripping spot/retreat center.
He was also friends with the Aldous Huxleys and L. Ron Hubbard, though the two later had a falling out.
He fancied himself a writer, but it wasn't his forte. Beau's novel, The Fuse, reads like the fantasies of a lustful young man.
Somewhere, along the line, perhaps during WWII, he and Townsend became besties and Beau would forever after be Townsend's number 1 booster and promoter.
Sidenote Acting on his desire to repay a debt, Babson would create the Gravity Research Foundation, in 1947 He had become wealthy using Newton’s laws of action and reaction and gravitation, to predict the stock market, and, as his giveback, funded awards to top researchers in the field.