Book excerpt: Alpha C Chiang, a renowned economist, and Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Connecticut, is best-known for his classic textbook — Fundamental Methods of Mathematical Economics.In this memoirs, he tells the entertaining, scary, embarrassing, glorifying and surreal tales that colored his life.On the academic side, Alpha describes in detail his scholastic journey, including why and how he created one of the most popular books on mathematical methods in economics, as well as the experiences of his teaching career. On the nonacademic side, he describes his ventures into his many hobbies, the spices of his life, including Chinese opera, ballroom dancing, painting and calligraphy, photography, piano, music composition, playwriting, and even magic. Such tales round out the depiction of a colorful life.What's behind his unusual name, Alpha? What schooling disaster tripped him at a young age? What surreal occurrence did he experience at a cliff at age 8? What major miracle changed his family? How did he become a loan shark when he was a graduate student at Columbia University? What Hollywood glamour star mysteriously materialized within inches of him when he was working on a TV show in his student days? How did he conquer a serious phobia and eventually become an acclaimed professor? What motivated his writing of his celebrated book? And what funny, embarrassing, and memorable events occurred in his teaching career?This book is a unique story about a unique life.