Constance Reid

Now in new trade paper editions, these classic biographies of two of the greatest 20th Century mathematicians are being released under the Copernicus imprint. These noteworthy accounts of the lives of David Hilbert and Richard Courant are closely related: Courant's story is, in many ways, seen as the sequel to the story of Hilbert. Originally published to great acclaim, both books explore the dramatic scientific history expressed in the lives of these two great scientists and described in the lively, nontechnical writing style of Contance Reid.

From Zero to Infinity is a combination of number lore, number history, and sparkling descriptions of the simply stated but exceedingly difficult problems posed by the most ordinary numbers that first appeared in 1955 and has been kept in print continuously ever since. With the fifth edition this classic has been updated to report on advances in number theory over the last 50 years, including the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. Deceptively simple in style and structure, it is a book to which the reader will return again and again, gaining greater understanding and satisfaction with each reading.

From Zero to Infinity is a combination of number lore, number history, and sparkling descriptions of the simply stated but exceedingly difficult problems posed by the most ordinary numbers that first appeared in 1955 and has been kept in print continuously ever since. With the fifth edition this classic has been updated to report on advances in number theory over the last 50 years, including the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. Deceptively simple in style and structure, it is a book to which the reader will return again and again, gaining greater understanding and satisfaction with each reading.

Jerzy Neyman (1894-1981) was one of the major figures in the development of statistics. Constance Reid, the noted biographer of Hilbert and Courant, describes his role in the development of modern statistics.

Eric Temple Bell (1883-1960) was a distinguished mathematician and a best selling popularizer of mathematics. His Men of Mathematics, still in print after almost sixty years, inspired scores of young readers to become mathematicians. Under the name of John Taine, he also published science fiction novels (among them The Time Stream, Before the Dawn, and The Crystal Horde) that served to broaden the subject matter of that genre during its early years. In The Search for E. T. Bell, Constance Reid has given us a compelling account of this complicated, difficult man who never divulged to anyone, not even to his wife and son, the story of his early life and family background. Her book is thus more of a mystery than a traditional biography. It begins with the discovery of an unexpected inscription in an English churchyard and a series of cryptic notations in a boy's schoolbook. Then comes an inadvertent revelation, by Bell himself, in a respected mathematical journal. You will have to read the book to learn the rest.

"...a story of great mathematicians and their achievements, of practical successes and failures, and of human perfidy and generosity...this is one of the still too rare occasions in which mathematicians are shown as frail, flesh-and-blood creatures...a very worthwhile book." -CHOICE

I am very pleased that my books about David Hilbert, published in 1970, and Richard Courant, published in 1976, are now being issued by Springer­ Verlag in a single volume. I have always felt that they belonged together, Courant being, as I have written, the natural and necessary sequel to Hilbert­ the rest of the story. To make the two volumes more compatible when published as one, we have combined and brought up to date the indexes of names and dates. U nfortu­ nately we have had to omit Hermann Weyl's article on "David Hilbert and his mathematical work," but the interested reader can always find it in the hard­ back edition of Hilbert and in Weyl's collected papers. At the request of a number of readers we have included a listing of all of Hilbert's famous Paris problems. It was, of course, inevitable that we would give the resulting joint volume the title Hilbert-Courant.

David Hilbert was one of the truly great mathematicians of his time. His work and his inspiring scientific personality have profoundly influenced the development of the mathematical sciences up to the present time. His vision, his productive power and independent originality as a mathematical thinker, his versatility and breadth of interest made him a pioneer in many different mathematical fields. He was a unique personality, profoundly immersed in his work and totally dedicated to his science, a teacher and leader of the very highest order, inspiring and most generous, tireless and persistent in all of his efforts. To me, one of the few survivors of Hilbert's inner circle, it always has appeared most desirable that a biography should be published. Considering, however, the enormous scientific scope of Hilbert's work, it seemed to me humanly impossible that a single biographer could do justice to all the as- pects of Hilbert as a productive scientist and to the impact of his radiant personality. Thus, when I learned of Mrs. Reid's plan for the present book I was at first skeptical whether somebody not thoroughly familiar with mathematics could possibly write an acceptable book. Yet, when I saw the manuscript my skepticism faded, and I became more and more enthusiastic about the author's achievement. I trust that the book will fascinate not only mathematicians but everybody who is interested in the mystery of the origin of great scientists in our society.