Paul R.

Halmos

I WANT TO BE A
MATHEMATICIAN
An Automathography

With 43 Photographs

Springer-Verlag
New York Berlin Heidelberg
London Paris Tokyo
 Table of Contents

Part I. Student
CHAPTER 1
Reading and writing and 'rithmetic
Words 3
Books 5
Writing 7
Languages 9
Numbers 10
Study or worry 12
Learning English 14
High school 16

CHAPTER 2
A College education
Move to Chambana 20
How not to be a freshman 22
Trig and analyt 24
Calculus, and is there a doctor on the faculty? 26
Elementary mathematics and culture 28
Mathematical daydreams and BARBARA 30
All Gaul 31
A Bachelor of Science 33

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CHAPTER 3
Graduate school
Statistics 36
The end of the affair 37
Matrices 40
The Dean • • 41
First class 43
Hazlett and Netzorg 45
Good morning, analysis 47
Why geometry? 48

CHAPTER 4
Learning to study
Dpob arrives 50
All work and politics 52
Born again 55
Other forces, other tongues 57
Prelims 60
For example 61
Statistics, no 64
Readings and ratings 66
Reprints: Doob's and others' 67
Study 69

CHAPTER 5
Learning to think
Optional skipping 74
Roller coaster 76
Jobs, no 78
On my own 80
The end of an era 82

CHAPTER 6
The Institute
The common room 84
The center of the world 88
Insignificant people 89
Work . . . 91
Work and between work 93
A weak paper and a pretty good book 95
Collaboration 97
Measures and Harvard 98
Classical mechanics 100
Birthdays 101
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CHAPTER 7
Winning the war
Back home in Illinois . 105
Meetings 106
Teaching at Syracuse 108
Research at Syracuse 111
Radiation Laboratory 114
Referee and review 118
From Syracuse to Chicago 121

Part IL Scholar
CHAPTER 8
A great university
Eckhart Hall 127
Days of glory 129
What makes a great university? 131
Teaching 133
Students and visitors 137

CHAPTER 9
The early years
Guggenheim 140
Measure Theory 143
Master's exams 144
Judgments 146
Jimmie Savage 149
Students and courses 152
The beginning of Hubert space 156
Ph.D. students 159
The Cambridge Congress 162
Follow the sun 164

CHAPTER 10
Montevideo
Where to go? 167
Saturation in Spanish 170
Room and board 172
Weather and climate 177
How to get a chair 178
Humanities and sciences 179
Faculty of engineering 182
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Instituto de Matemätica 184

Institute people 185
Teaching in Montevideo 188
Research in Uruguay 191
Spy, junior grade 195
Small memories 197

CHAPTER 11
The fabulous fifties
Back home 200
Is formal logic mathematics? 202
Boolean logic 206
The road to polyadic algebras 208
All logic and all mathematics 210
Logic students and logicians 213
The passport saga 216
Service 219
Editing 222
How to be a big shot 224
How to be an editor 228
Recent progress in ergodic theory 235
Writing for a living 237
The Institute again 239
Boolean algebras and sets 243
Farewell 247

Part III. Senior

CHAPTER 12
How to teach
Shifting gears 253
The Moore method 255
Moore and covering material 260
How to be a pro 265
Musings on teaching 269
How to supervise 272
More Ph.D. students 275

CHAPTER 13
To Sydney, to Moscow, and back
Sydney 1964 280
Budapest 1964 284
Scotland 1965 290
Tourist in Moscow and Leningrad 295
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Life with Anosov 301

Fomin and Gelfand 304
Mathematicians in Moscow 308
As others see us 315

CHAPTER 14
How to do almost everything
Rejections 319
How to do research . . . . . ' 321
The invariant subspace problem 325
Friends can help . 329
How to recommend 334
How to advise 339
Honolulu, here I come! 343

CHAPTER 15
Service, one way or another
Democracy ad absurdum 349
How to be a chairman 353
How not to be a chairman 356
Life in Bloomington 363
Indiana students 366
Committees of one: Wabash 372
Committees of one: Bulletin 375
The Monthly 379
Here and there 383
How to write mathematics 390
How to write about von Neumann 393
How to write history? 397

Coda
How to be a mathematician 400

Index of Photographs 405

Index . 407