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Driven to Innovate: A Century of Jewish Mathematicians and Physicists
Ioan James celebrates the extraordinary contribution made by Jewish people in mathematics and physics, from the mathematician Norbert Wiener, the founder of cybernetics, to distinguished nuclear physicist and Nobel Prize-winner Niels Bohr. He tells the life-stories of thirty-five men and women, born in the nineteenth century, who were at the forefront of research in the closely related fields of mathematics and physics, often in the face of various kinds of anti-Semitism.
Some were caught up in the trauma of the Nazi accession to power in Germany and the Second World War. Wolfgang Pauli, described as ‘greater than Einstein’ by his contemporary Max Born, became a German national following the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938 but was able to escape to the United States for the duration of the war. Already hampered by anti-Semitism in his native Poland, logician and mathematician Alfred Tarski found himself stranded in the USA at the outbreak of war and did not see his wife and sons until the war’s end. The Italian mathematician Vito Volterra publicly opposed Mussolini’s Fascist regime at considerable personal risk. Others such as George Pólya and Emmy Noether found that their left-wing political beliefs hindered their careers.
Some were caught up in the trauma of the Nazi accession to power in Germany and the Second World War. Wolfgang Pauli, described as ‘greater than Einstein’ by his contemporary Max Born, became a German national following the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938 but was able to escape to the United States for the duration of the war. Already hampered by anti-Semitism in his native Poland, logician and mathematician Alfred Tarski found himself stranded in the USA at the outbreak of war and did not see his wife and sons until the war’s end. The Italian mathematician Vito Volterra publicly opposed Mussolini’s Fascist regime at considerable personal risk. Others such as George Pólya and Emmy Noether found that their left-wing political beliefs hindered their careers.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
6 people want to read
About the author
Ioan James
11 books3 followersIoan Mackenzie James was a British mathematician working in the field of topology, particularly in homotopy theory.
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March 22, 2014
It is no secret that Jewish scholars have made enormous contributions to science, achieving far more than one might expect from their relatively small numbers. They have also faced a staggering array of obstacles, culminating in the near-total destruction of European Jewry under the Nazis in the Second World War. These two themes – genius and persecution – are the twin currents that flow through Ioan James’s compelling narrative, uniting a series of profiles which might otherwise be of interest primarily to a more specialized audience.
The profiles of 35 physicists and mathematicians span the period from the mid-1800s to about 1950. Many of those profiled, like Max Born and Albert Michelson, are relatively well-known, while Albert Einstein is, of course, a household name. Many others, however, are more obscure: Prussian mathematician Gottfried Eisenstein, for example, whose intellect was described by Gauss as being on par with that of Archimedes and Newton; or German physicist Franz Simon, whose stellar career at Oxford made the university’s Clarendon Laboratories into the leading centre for low-temperature physics.
Women, of course, faced obstacles of their own. James has included three Jewish women in the collection: Hertha Ayrton (born Phoebe Sarah Marks), who studied math at Cambridge and was the first woman to read a paper before the Royal Society; Lise Meitner, whose work on nuclear fission, many historians believe, ought to have earned her a Nobel Prize; and Emmy Noether, described by Einstein as “the most significant mathematical genius since the higher education of women began.”
None of the 35 scientists had an easy life. Many had to flee the countries of their birth to escape persecution. One of the most tragic figures is German mathematician Felix Hausdorff, who committed suicide in 1942, together with his wife, to avoid inevitable capture by the Nazis. But the hardships began long before Hitler came to power. Fifty years earlier, Tsar Alexander III instigated waves of persecution, known as pogroms, against Russia’s Jews; in the 1930s and 40s, Jews faced the horror of Stalin’s purges. The fascists that seized power in Hungary in 1919 were also rabidly anti-Semitic. And the list goes on.
Even in Britain and America, surely safe havens by comparison, anti-Semitism was never far below the surface, as highlighted by the plight of mathematician J.J. Sylvester. As a student in Liverpool in the 1820s, a classmate recalled, he was “hunted by his schoolfellows, in the open street, for no worse reason than that he was a Jew, and very much cleverer, especially in mathematics, than they were.” Sylvester left England for the U.S. in 1841, at one point attempting to secure a position at Columbia College (now Columbia University) in New York, an institution whose charter explicitly forbade religious discrimination. Even so, James says, he was told that “the election of a Jew would be repugnant to the feelings of every member of the board.” (A college spokesman pointed out that the sentiment “was not at all on the ground of him being a foreigner; it would have been the same had he been born of Jewish parentage in the United States.”)
James doesn’t attempt to find the root causes of this seemingly-endless tide of hostility. He does, however, do an admirable job of outlining the recent history of European Jewry in a thoroughly-researched introductory chapter. He also reminds us just how important Jews once were to the intellectual life of Europe. Before the war, some European cities were as much as one-quarter Jewish. Many were doctors, lawyers, businessmen, or professors. In Germany, well-educated Jewish families established salons in the capital. “Poised precariously between the nobility and the bourgeoisie,” James writes, “they succeeded in transforming Berlin into a major cultural center.” In Vienna, “Jews began first to enter and then dominate intellectual cultural life.”
In the early decades of the 20th century, many Jews left Europe for America, and their influence on culture and society came with them. As James points out, by 1918, two-fifths of Columbia students were Jewish; the figure was 20% at Harvard and 10% at Yale (figures which later declined when quotas were adopted to limit the number of Jewish students).
One thing is clear: When barriers to their success are removed, Jews do very well indeed, particularly in the sciences. James attempts – bravely, perhaps – to address the question of why this is so. In a thoughtful analysis that runs for about a dozen pages (and which would make a compelling essay on its own), James, who is not Jewish, points to a variety of factors. It is “reasonable to suppose that there may be genetic factors,” he concludes, but that cultural factors along with “certain traditions and values which are distinctively Jewish” may also play a role. No wonder people are squeamish about such matters. After all, one might argue that it is the notion of “being different” that has fed so much hatred over the years. (Adapted from a review I wrote for Physics World.)
The profiles of 35 physicists and mathematicians span the period from the mid-1800s to about 1950. Many of those profiled, like Max Born and Albert Michelson, are relatively well-known, while Albert Einstein is, of course, a household name. Many others, however, are more obscure: Prussian mathematician Gottfried Eisenstein, for example, whose intellect was described by Gauss as being on par with that of Archimedes and Newton; or German physicist Franz Simon, whose stellar career at Oxford made the university’s Clarendon Laboratories into the leading centre for low-temperature physics.
Women, of course, faced obstacles of their own. James has included three Jewish women in the collection: Hertha Ayrton (born Phoebe Sarah Marks), who studied math at Cambridge and was the first woman to read a paper before the Royal Society; Lise Meitner, whose work on nuclear fission, many historians believe, ought to have earned her a Nobel Prize; and Emmy Noether, described by Einstein as “the most significant mathematical genius since the higher education of women began.”
None of the 35 scientists had an easy life. Many had to flee the countries of their birth to escape persecution. One of the most tragic figures is German mathematician Felix Hausdorff, who committed suicide in 1942, together with his wife, to avoid inevitable capture by the Nazis. But the hardships began long before Hitler came to power. Fifty years earlier, Tsar Alexander III instigated waves of persecution, known as pogroms, against Russia’s Jews; in the 1930s and 40s, Jews faced the horror of Stalin’s purges. The fascists that seized power in Hungary in 1919 were also rabidly anti-Semitic. And the list goes on.
Even in Britain and America, surely safe havens by comparison, anti-Semitism was never far below the surface, as highlighted by the plight of mathematician J.J. Sylvester. As a student in Liverpool in the 1820s, a classmate recalled, he was “hunted by his schoolfellows, in the open street, for no worse reason than that he was a Jew, and very much cleverer, especially in mathematics, than they were.” Sylvester left England for the U.S. in 1841, at one point attempting to secure a position at Columbia College (now Columbia University) in New York, an institution whose charter explicitly forbade religious discrimination. Even so, James says, he was told that “the election of a Jew would be repugnant to the feelings of every member of the board.” (A college spokesman pointed out that the sentiment “was not at all on the ground of him being a foreigner; it would have been the same had he been born of Jewish parentage in the United States.”)
James doesn’t attempt to find the root causes of this seemingly-endless tide of hostility. He does, however, do an admirable job of outlining the recent history of European Jewry in a thoroughly-researched introductory chapter. He also reminds us just how important Jews once were to the intellectual life of Europe. Before the war, some European cities were as much as one-quarter Jewish. Many were doctors, lawyers, businessmen, or professors. In Germany, well-educated Jewish families established salons in the capital. “Poised precariously between the nobility and the bourgeoisie,” James writes, “they succeeded in transforming Berlin into a major cultural center.” In Vienna, “Jews began first to enter and then dominate intellectual cultural life.”
In the early decades of the 20th century, many Jews left Europe for America, and their influence on culture and society came with them. As James points out, by 1918, two-fifths of Columbia students were Jewish; the figure was 20% at Harvard and 10% at Yale (figures which later declined when quotas were adopted to limit the number of Jewish students).
One thing is clear: When barriers to their success are removed, Jews do very well indeed, particularly in the sciences. James attempts – bravely, perhaps – to address the question of why this is so. In a thoughtful analysis that runs for about a dozen pages (and which would make a compelling essay on its own), James, who is not Jewish, points to a variety of factors. It is “reasonable to suppose that there may be genetic factors,” he concludes, but that cultural factors along with “certain traditions and values which are distinctively Jewish” may also play a role. No wonder people are squeamish about such matters. After all, one might argue that it is the notion of “being different” that has fed so much hatred over the years. (Adapted from a review I wrote for Physics World.)
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