Lecturing fee

In her memoir about her father André, the famous mathematician, and her aunt Simone, the even more famous saint, Sophie Weil says the following:

My father often said that Jews could be divided into two categories: merchants or rabbis. Naturally he classified himself, along with his sister, in the latter category, shich did not keep him from taking pride in almost always selling what he called his “modest merchandise,” or mathematical insight, at a respectable price.

I am not a mathematician in Weil’s class, but this seems a good principle to me, so I have decided to start charging a fee for giving an on-line talk.

The problem with an on-line talk is that I may know very few people in the audience, and they probably have their cameras off while I am talking, so I have no idea who I am talking to or how it is going over. It occurred to me that if I at least had a picture of the place where I am speaking, I would feel a bit more connected to it. So I decided to request that organisers of on-line seminars or conferences who invite me should send me a picture of their university, town, or surroundings.

This new policy was implemented for a talk at a hybrid conference in Tezpur, Assam, India, on Mathematical Sciences and Applications. The local organiser, Rajat Kanti Nath, enthusiastically agreed and sent me a number of pictures of the university and its surroundings. I found that it really did work: I have never been there, and have no prospect of going in the immediate future, but it did feel more like a real place, just after viewing a few carefully chosen pictures.

Somebody pointed out an added advantage of this system: the fee is not taxable!