Fascinating Mathematical People: Interviews and Memoirs

347 Pages·2016·7.84 MB·English

by  Albers D.J.

Fascinating MatheMatical People
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Fascinating
PeoPle
MatheMatical
IntervIews and MeMoIrs
donald J. albers and
Gerald L. alexanderson, editors
With a foreword by Philip J. Davis
Princeton University Press • Princeton and oxford
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Copyright © 2011 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William
Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
press.princeton.edu
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fascinating mathematical people : interviews and
memoirs / Donald J. Albers and Gerald L. Alexander-
son, editors ; with a foreword by Philip J. Davis.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-691-14829-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Mathematicians—Biography. 2. Mathematicians—
Interviews. I. Albers, Donald J., 1941–
II. Alexanderson, Gerald L.
QA28.F37 2011
510.92’2—dc22
2011010624
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data is
available

This book has been composed in Minion Pro and Eras
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Contents
Foreword by Philip J. Davis vii
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Sources xv
One Eleven
Lars V. Ahlfors 1 Fern Hunt 193
Two Twelve
Tom Apostol 17 Dusa McDuff 215
Three Thirteen
Harold M. Bacon 43 Donald G. Saari 240
Four Fourteen
Tom Banchoff 52 Atle Selberg 254
Five Fifteen
Leon Bankoff 79 Jean Taylor 274
Six Sixteen
Alice Beckenbach 96 Philippe Tondeur 294
Seven
Arthur Benjamin 107
Eight Biographical Notes 319
Glossary 321
Dame Mary L. Cartwright 129
Index 325
Nine
Joe Gallian 146
Ten
Richard K. Guy 165
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Foreword
Philip J. Davis
H
ow do the words of mathematicians, dis- Since 1950 modes of communication and
cussing their work, their careers, their lives, the possibility of social/technological inter-
become known to a larger audience? There changes have grown exponentially (a math-
are, of course, biographies and autobiogra- ematical term that pundits like to use).
phies of mathematicians going as far back Newspapers, books (e.g., the recent Recount-
as Pythagoras. There are letters galore. Some ings: Conversations with MIT Mathematicians),
off-the-cuff remarks have been preserved radio, TV, dramatic stage productions, movies,
(e.g., those of Lagrange). Thus, authentic e-mail, YouTube, the Internet, and conference
words of bygone mathematicians are not dif- reports all record or depict interviews in which
ficult to come by, and out of them it would mathematicians often sound off on all sorts of
be easy to construct an imaginative mock topics far removed from their narrow special-
interview: ties. I myself have interviewed several dozen
numerical analysts, with texts now available
Interviewer: Academician Euler, with so online, as a part of a Society for Industrial and
many children how did you manage to Applied Mathematics (SIAM) project. Thus,
separate your professional life from your the time of much singing has come, and the
family life? voice of the mathematician is heard in the
land. The question of who is listening is not
Euler: I’m glad you asked. I didn’t. I con-
beyond conjecture.
sider all of them, theorems and children, as
The variety of subjects, professional values,
my results.
personal lifestyles, and more, of contempo-
Interviews? The word interview originally rary mathematicians are all well depicted in
meant simply the meeting of two people. the interviews presented in this third col-
Later it came to mean the questioning of lection of Mathematical People. Those of us
some notable person by a newspaper reporter. in the mathematical business will find the
In the current and wider sense of the word, macro aspect familiar, while the micro aspect
interviews with mathematicians start, say, satisfies our natural curiosity as to why and
around 1950. We now have interviews that what the next fellow is up to.
link mathematical works, lives, and opinions. Perhaps, therefore, the larger value of
They are often called oral histories. such collections as this may be found in, say,
Foreword vii
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twenty-five or fifty years. During this inter- view. A future mathematician may pick up
val of time, the very nature of mathematics, this book in a library or in whatever format
its contents, its applications, the manner of texts are then the norm and say, “Gosh, that
its presentation, and of its support by society was certainly the golden age,” or alternatively,
may have changed substantially. The study of and with considerable pride, “How much bet-
the history of mathematics confirms such a ter, from all points of view, things are now!”
viii Foreword
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Preface
T
he best-known recent biographer of math- the Scientific American, came to know hun-
ematicians is Constance Reid, the San Fran- dreds of mathematicians, many of whom had
cisco writer, whose life of David Hilbert was been inspired by his work. He corresponded
highly praised when it was published in 1970. with some of the best mathematicians in the
Her sister Julia Robinson was a distinguished world, who regularly sent him news of mathe-
University of California, Berkeley mathema- matical developments that he often fashioned
tician married to Raphael Robinson, also a into wonderful columns that were enjoyed
Berkeley mathematician. Julia’s marriage to by thousands of readers every month. One of
Raphael and Berkeley’s close proximity to us interviewed him a few years ago, and he
San Francisco brought Constance in frequent had this to say about mathematicians: “There
contact with many mathematicians, and she are some traits all mathematicians share. An
found that she enjoyed their company and the obvious one is a sense of amazement over the
culture in which they were embedded. Her infinite depth and the mysterious beauty and
interest in them eventually reached the point usefulness of mathematics.”
that she decided to write the Hilbert book, Both of us have interacted with large
followed by volumes on Richard Courant, numbers of mathematicians in our profes-
Jerzy Neyman, and E. T. Bell. After observing sional lives as professors, journal editors,
mathematicians for some time, she summa- and officers of the Mathematical Association
rized her impression of them: “Mathematics of America. We have interviewed dozens of
is a world created by the mind of man, and mathematicians over the last thirty years, and
mathematicians are people who devote their our conversations with and personal observa-
lives to what seems to me a wonderful kind tions of scores of mathematicians lead us to
of play!” It’s true—if you’re around a group strongly agree with the descriptions of math-
of mathematicians excitedly talking about ematicians provided by Reid and Gardner.
mathematics, you come away with a sense Historically mathematics has often been
that whatever they’re doing, it’s fun. motivated by questions in astronomy, mechan-
Martin Gardner, the most widely read ics, the physical and biological sciences, and,
expositor of mathematics of the twentieth more recently, in economics. It is therefore
century, during the twenty-five years that he widely appreciated because it works. It tells
wrote a monthly column on mathematics in us about phenomena that are otherwise hard
Preface ix
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