Introduction to Part VI

This last set of essays leaves the terrain of Göttingen, even though its tradition still looms large in the background. Here I present an assortment of mathematical people, some of whom are likely to be known to many readers. The scene now shifts somewhat abruptly to figures in North America during the last century, though usually with an eye cast toward their links with Europe. Curiosity about the roots of research mathematics in the United States – an important chapter in the larger story of American higher education – was a major factor that influenced my early interest in the German universities, particularly Göttingen’s Georgia Augusta. One can hardly exaggerate the strength of that university’s attraction on the nascent American community in the time of Klein and Hilbert, a short period during which foreign mathematicians flocked to Göttingen in droves (Parshall and Rowe 1994). Considering the tiny number of graduate students worldwide at that time, it is simply astounding to realize that between 1898 and 1914 over 60 of them took doctoral degrees under Hilbert’s supervision! Not a few of his students later went on to enjoy distinguished careers as researchers and teachers both in Germany as well as abroad.