Für die Ehre des menschlichen Geistes – Ein neuer Blick auf eine bekannte Kontroverse zwischen Fourier und Jacobi über die Rolle der Anwendungen der Mathematik

Published version of an article from the journal: Mitteilungen der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung (DMV

Another look at the two Egyptian pyramid volume ‘formulas’ of 1850 BCE

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Richard von Mises’ work for ZAMM until his emigration in 1933 and glimpses of the later history of ZAMM

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A married couple of mathematicians from Vienna remembers Sigmund Freud (1953)

The paper is based on a hitherto unexplored document (audiotape of an interview accompanied by a German transcript) from 1953, located in the Freud Papers at the Library of Congress. It contributes to a better understanding of the impact of Freud and of Psychoanalysis on personalities from the exact sciences, here represented by the noted applied mathematicians Richard von Mises and Hilda Geiringer from Vienna. The detailed discussion of the interview sheds some new light on the different roles of Kraus and Freud in the Vienna culture, on the Vienna Jugendkulturbewegung (youth culture movement) during WWI in which Geiringer was involved, on Freud’s and Siegfried Bernfeld’s standing around 1930 among German philosophers and psychologists, and on Wilhelm Fließ’ theory of periodicity, which von Mises—based on his attitude as an applied mathematician—defended against superficial accusations. Finally, new biographical material is provided for von Mises and the remotely related Freud family, and for Geiringer’s and von Mises’ early lives. The interview, which was taken during the Cold War, also allows conclusions as to how politics influenced the memories and views of the participants. Part of the aim of the paper is historical documentation of unknown material (letters by Karl Kraus and Wolfgang Köhler, one book review by Wilhelm Ostwald, a file on R. Pfennig), including some correction of erroneous information in the literature.publishedVersio

Some remarks and documents concerning the emigration of Polish mathematicians during the 1930s and early 1940

The history of the sufferings and the emigration of mathematicians under Nazi influence would be very incomplete without considering the perhaps most vibrant and at the same time most victimized European mathematical school of the 1930s, namely the Polish one. Polish mathematical emigration contributed – similarly to German-speaking emigration – considerably to the development of mathematics in the host countries, particularly in the United States. The paper contributes to the discussion with some archival documents from two specific sources, which have so far found relatively little attention among historians of mathematics. These are the files of the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning (SPSL) at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, UK, and the files related to the Asylum Fellowship Planorganized by the Astronomer at Harvard University Harlow Shapley, now in possession of the Harvard University Archives.The history of the sufferings and the emigration of mathematicians under Nazi influence would be very incomplete without considering the perhaps most vibrant and at the same time most victimized European mathematical school of the 1930s, namely the Polish one. Polish mathematical emigration contributed – similarly to German-speaking emigration – considerably to the development of mathematics in the host countries, particularly in the United States. The paper contributes to the discussion with some archival documents from two specific sources, which have so far found relatively little attention among historians of mathematics. These are the files of the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning (SPSL) at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, UK, and the files related to the Asylum Fellowship Planorganized by the Astronomer at Harvard University Harlow Shapley, now in possession of the Harvard University Archives.   Kilka uwag i dokumentów dotyczących emigracji polskich matematyków w latach 30. i 40. XX wieku Abstrakt Historia cierpień i emigracji matematyków wywołanych przez nazistów jest bardzo niekompletna, jeśli nie weźmiemy pod uwagę szkoły polskiej, chyba najbardziej tętniącej życiem, a zarazem najbardziej prześladowanej europejskiej szkoły matematycznej lat trzydziestych XX wieku. Polska emigracja matematyczna przyczyniła się – podobnie jak emigracja niemieckojęzyczna – do rozwoju matematyki w krajach przyjmujących, szczególnie w Stanach Zjednoczonych. Artykuł jest przyczynkiem do dyskusji na temat niektórych dokumentów archiwalnych z dwóch konkretnych źródeł, które jak dotąd stosunkowo mało interesowały historyków matematyki. Są to akta Society for the Protection of Science and Learning (SPSL) w Bodleian Library w Oxfordzie w Wielkiej Brytanii oraz akta związane z Asylum Fellowship Plan organizowanym przez Harlowa Shapleya, astronoma z Harvard University, obecnie w posiadaniu Harvard University Archives

Rockefeller philanthropy and mathematical emigration between World Wars

Published version of an article in the journal: The Mathematical Intelligencer. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00283-014-9530-9This article discusses one aspect of Rockefeller support for mathematics: the emigration of mathematicians from Europe. For the broader policies of the Rockefeller philanthropies for internationalization of mathematics, see my monograph Siegmund-Schultze (2001), which together with other sources will be broadly used in the following and will be quoted as RI

The interplay of various Scandinavian mathematical journals (1859-1953) and the road towards internationalization

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Euclid’s proof of the infinitude of primes: distorted, clarified, made obsolete, and confirmed in modern mathematics

Published version of an article in the journal: Mathematical Intelligencer. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00283-014-9506-