Recountings

This book traces the history of the MIT Department of Mathematics-one of the most important mathematics departments in the world-through candid, in-depth, lively conversations with a select and diverse group of its senior members. The process reveals much about the motivation, path, and impact of research mathematicians in a society that owes so much to this little understood and often mystifying section of its intellectual fabric. This book contributes to our understanding and entertains through its personal approach.

Joel Segel, the editor and interviewer, is a writer with a background in the sciences and the son of an accomplished mathematician.

Zipporah (Fagi) Levinson. Isadore M. Singer. Arthur P. Mattuck. Hartley Rogers. Gilbert Strang. Kenneth M. Hoffman. Alar Toomre. Steven L. Kleiman. Harvey P. Greenspan. Bertram Kostant. Michael Artin. Daniel J. Kleitman. Sigurdur Helgason