Rota ne morning in 1946 in Los how at Harvard they would sit for - PDF document

by Gian-Carlo Rota ne morning in 1946 in Los how at Harvard they would sit for hours careless in the details of his attire, even Angeles, Stan Ulam, a newly though his clothing was still expensively on end, day after day, in front of the blackboard. Since I met him, Stan never appointed professor at the chosen. University of Southern Cali- When I met him, many years after did anything of the sort. He would per- the event, I could not help noticing that form a calculation, even the simplest, fornia, awoke to find himself unable to his trains of thought were unusual, even only when he had absolutely no other speak. A few hours later he underwent an emergency operation. His skull was for a mathematician. In conversation he way out. I remember once watching sawed open and his brain tissue sprayed was livelier and wittier than anyone I him at the blackboard trying to solve with newly discovered antibiotics. The had ever met, and his ideas, which he a quadratic equation. He furrowed his diagnosis~encephalitis, an inflammation spouted out at odd intervals, were fasci- brow in rapt absorption, while scribbling of the brain. After a short convales- nating beyond anything I have witnessed formulas in his tiny handwriting. When cence he managed to recover, apparently before or since. However, he seemed to he finally got the answer, he turned unscathed. studiously avoid going into any details. around and said with relief, "I feel I He would dwell on a given subject no have done my work for the day." In time, however, some changes in longer than a few minutes, then impa- his personality became obvious to those tiently move on to something entirely The Germans have aptly called Sitz- fleisch the ability to spend endless hours who knew him. Paul Stein, one of his unrelated. at a desk doing gruesome work. Sitz- collaborators at Los Alamos, remarked Out of curiosity I asked Oxtoby, fleisch is considered by mathematicians that, while before his operation Stan Stan's collaborator in the thirties, about to be a better gauge of success than had been a meticulous dresser, a dandy their working habits before his oper- ation. Surprisingly, Oxtoby described any of the attractive definitions of tal- of sorts, afterwards he became visibly Los Alamos Science Special Issue 1987

ent with which psychologists regale us off on the marble of coffee tables in the from time to time. Stan Ulam was able late evenings, in loud and uninhibited to get by without any Sitzfleisch what- brawls. soever. After his bout with encephali- The Lw6w school was made up of tis, he came to lean instead on his own offbeat, undisciplined types. Stan's unimpaired imagination for new ideas teacher Banach was an alcoholic, and and on the Sitzfleisch of others for tech- his best friend Mazur was a Communist. nical support. The beauty of his insights They cultivated the new fields of mea- and the promise of his proposals kept sure theory, set theory, and functional him amply supplied with young col- analysis, which at the time required laborators always willing to lend (and ence on his personality, and through- very little background. The rival War- sometimes risking to waste) their time. out his life he kept going back to them saw mathematicians, more conservative, A crippling technical weakness cou- for comfort. From Karl May's numer- looked down on the Lw6w mathemati- pled with an extraordinarily creative ous adventure novels (popular enough cians as amateurish upstarts, but the imagination is the drama of Stan Ulam. in the German-speaking world to be results of the Lw6w school soon came Soon after I met him, I was made to un- among the favorite books of both Ein- to be better known and appreciated the derstand that, as far as our conversations stein and Hitler) he derived the childlike world over, largely after the publication went, his drama would be a Forbidden and ever fresh feeling of wonder that is of Banach's book on linear operators, Topic. Perhaps he discussed it with his often found in great men. From Anatole in which Ulam's name is the most fre- daughter, Claire, the only person with France he took his man-of-the-world quently mentioned. whom he would occasionally have bru- mannerisms, which in later life would One day the amateur Ulam went one tally frank discussions, but certainly not endear him to young ladies. up on the Warsaw mathematicans, who with anyone else. But he knew I knew, He kept a complete set of Karl May's cultivated the equally new field of al- and I knew he knew I knew. novels (in German, the other language gebraic topology. While chatting at of his childhood) behind his desk un- the Scottish Cafe with Borsuk, an out- til he died. He regretted that a Plkiade standing Warsaw topologist, he saw in a tan Ulam was born into a family edition of Anatole France had not been flash the truth of what is now called the that stood as high on the social published, which he could keep by his Borsuk-Ulam theorem. Borsuk had to ladder as a Jewish family could at bedside. He often gave me paperbacks commandeer all his technical resources the time. He was the golden boy from of Anatole France, bought on his fre- to prove it. News of the result quickly one of the richest families of Lw6w. quent trips to Paris and dedicated with swept across the ocean, and Ulam be- In central Europe the Ulam name was inscriptions urging me to read them. I came an instant topologist. then a synonym of banking wealth, not regret to admit I haven't. unlike the Rothschilds' in western Eu- Stan took to cafe-mathematics like a rope. He was educated by private tutors There was never any doubt that he fish to water. He quickly became the and in the best schools. As a child he would study mathematics when, at age most daring of the Lw6w mathemati- already showed an unusual interest in seventeen, he enrolled at Lw6w Poly- cians in formulating bold new math- astronomy ("I am star-struck," he would technic Institute. Shortly after classes ematical conjectures. Almost all his often tell me) and in physics. At the started he discovered with relief that guesses of that time have been proved age of twelve he was reasonably fa- the mathematics that really mattered true and are now to be found as theo- miliar with the outlines of the special was not taught in the classroom, but rems scattered in graduate textbooks. theory of relativity, a great novelty at was instead to be found alive in one In the casual ambiance of the Scot- the time. In high school he was a top of the large cafes in town, the Scot- tish Cafe, Stan blossomed into one of student, far too bright for his age. His tish Cafe. There the Lw6w mathemati- the most promising mathematicians of quick wit got him good grades with lit- cians would congregate daily. Between his generation. He also began to dis- tle effort but lent free rein to his lazi- a shot of brandy and a cup of coffee, play the contradictory traits in behavior ness. they would pose (and often solve) what that after his operation were to become The two authors he read thoroughly turned out to be some of the outstand- dominant: deep intuition and impatience in his teens were Karl May and Anatole ing mathematical conjectures of their with detail, playful inventiveness and France. They had a formative influ- time, conjectures that would be dashed dislike of prolonged work. He began to Los Alamos Science Special Issue 1987