Meeting under the Integral Sign? : The Oslo Congress of Mathematicians on the Eve of the Second World War

360 Pages·2020·6.997 MB·English

by  Christopher D. Hollings and Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze

HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS VOL 44
MEETING
UNDER
THE
INTEGRAL
SIGN?
The Oslo Congress of Mathematicians
on the Eve of the Second World War
Christopher D. Hollings
Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze
MEETING
UNDER
THE
INTEGRAL
SIGN?
The Oslo Congress of Mathematicians
on the Eve of the Second World War

HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS VOL 44
MEETING
UNDER
THE
INTEGRAL
SIGN?
The Oslo Congress of Mathematicians
on the Eve of the Second World War
Christopher D. Hollings
Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze
in collaboration with Henrik Kragh Sørensen
Editorial Board
June Barrow-Green Bruce Reznick
Michael Harris Adrian Rice, Chair
Cover image: National Library, Oslo, unprocessed 115 Carl Størmer Archives.
Back cover image: Dagbladet, 14 July, 1936, p. 3.
2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 01A60.
For additional informationand updates on this book, visit
www.ams.org/bookpages/hmath-44
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hollings, Christopher, 1982– author. | Siegmund-Schultze, R. (Reinhard), author. |
Sørensen,HenrikKragh,author.
Title: Meetingundertheintegralsign? : theOsloCongressofMathematiciansontheeveofthe
SecondWorldWar/Christopher D.Hollings,ReinhardSiegmund-Schultze ; incollaboration
withHenrikKraghSørensen.
Description: Providence,RhodeIsland: AmericanMathematicalSociety,[2019]|Series: History
ofmathematics,0899-2428;volume44|Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
Identifiers: LCCN2019039704|ISBN9781470443535(hardcover)|ISBN9781470455156(ebook)
Subjects: LCSH:InternationalCongressofMathematicians(1936: Oslo,Norway)|International
CongressofMathematicians–History. |Mathematics–Congresses–History–20thcentury.
Classification: LCCQA1.H652019|DDC510.7–dc23
LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2019039704
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Contents
List of Figures ix
List of Tables xi
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xvi
Abbreviations xvii
Conventions for Transliteration from Cyrillic Characters xix
Part 1. Introduction 1
Chapter 1. Introduction: Four Strategies, the Prehistory of the Oslo
Congress, and Sources 3
1.1. Four strategies for international mathematical communication 3
1.2. The prehistory of the Oslo congress 6
1.3. Sources 15
Part 2. The Politics of the Congress 19
Chapter 2. TheNorwegianHosts: TheNewcomerwithHistoricalTraditions 21
2.1. Prehistory of the ICM in Scandinavia 21
2.2. 1928: Norwegians enter the international stage in new numbers 26
2.3. The 1932 Zurich congress and the Norwegian bid for 1936 28
2.4. The 1929 Abel celebrations in Oslo 30
2.5. Setting up the organisation of the 1936 ICM 32
2.6. Efforts to secure funding and advertise the event 34
2.7. Promoting tourism in Norway 37
2.8. Setting up the programme of plenary speakers 39
2.9. The outlook and international ambitions of the organisers 47
2.10. How Oslo superseded Princeton for one week 59
Chapter 3. The German Delegation: Swaying between Expansionism and
Isolationism 61
3.1. Preparation for the congress 61
3.2. German attendance and Lietzmann’s reports 76
3.3. Further consequences of the congress for the German delegates 85
v
vi CONTENTS
Chapter 4. The Russian Withdrawal: Isolationism out of Fear and Ideology 89
4.1. A conspicuous absence 89
4.2. Political obstacles 91
4.3. Russian and Soviet mathematics to 1936 93
4.4. Attempts to participate in Oslo 96
4.5. After Oslo 99
Chapter 5. The Italian Case: Mathematics as a Victim of World Politics 103
5.1. Introduction 103
5.2. Italian mathematicians and the early ICMs 105
5.3. Italian mathematics under Mussolini 109
Chapter 6. The Congress in the Norwegian Dailies 117
6.1. Mathematical refugees and other political and social issues 117
6.2. Commentary on Appendix A 120
Chapter 7. International Mathematics Shortly Before and After the Second
World War: A Glimpse Ahead and Back Again 127
Part 3. The Mathematics of the Congress 141
Chapter 8. Assessing the Mathematics of the Congress 143
8.1. Developments in mathematical communication 144
8.2. Measuring mathematical impact 146
8.3. Languages and geographical distribution of speakers 149
8.4. Analysis of content: thematic restrictions 150
Chapter 9. The Plenary Lectures 159
9.1. Evaluating the plenary lectures 159
9.2. C. Størmer: “Programme for the quantitative discussion of electron
orbits in the field of a magnetic dipole, with application to cosmic
rays and kindred phenomena” 161
9.3. R. Fueter: “The theory of regular functions
of a quaternion variable” 163
9.4. E´. Cartan: “Some insights into the role of Sophus Lie’s theory
of groups in the development of modern geometry” 165
9.5. C. L. Siegel: “Analytic theory of quadratic forms” 169
9.6. O. Veblen: “Spinors and projective geometry” 172
9.7. J. Nielsen: “Some methods and results from the topology of surface
transformations” 176
9.8. E. Hecke: “Recent advances in the theory of elliptic modular
functions” 178
9.9. O. Neugebauer: “On pre-Greek mathematics and its position relative
to the Greek” 180
9.10. C. W. Oseen: “Problems of geometric optics” 183
9.11. V. Bjerknes: “New lines in hydrodynamics” 185
9.12. H. Hasse: “On the Riemann hypothesis in function fields” 188
CONTENTS vii
9.13. G. D. Birkhoff: “On the foundations of quantum mechanics” 192
9.14. L. J. Mordell: “Minkowski’s theorems and hypotheses
on linear forms” 194
9.15. L. V. Ahlfors: “Geometry of Riemann surfaces” 197
9.16. J. G. van der Corput: “Diophantine approximation” 202
9.17. S. Banach: “The theory of operations and their significance
for analysis” 204
9.18. M. Fr´echet: “Mathematical m´elange” 208
9.19. N. Wiener: “Gap theorems” 210
9.20. Ø. Ore: “The decomposition theorems of algebra” 214
9.21. The plenary lectures that were planned but did not take place 218
9.22. The award of the first Fields Medals to Ahlfors and Douglas 225
Chapter 10. ICMI 231
Chapter 11. Conclusions Regarding the Mathematics of the Congress 235
Appendices 241
Appendix A. Norwegian Newspaper Items Relating to the Congress 243
A.1. Aftenposten, 13 July 1936, no. 346, pp.1+5 (signed by S.-L.) 243
A.2. Aftenposten, 14 July 1936, no. 348, p.3 245
A.3. Arbeiderbladet, 14 July 1936, no. 161, p.5 247
A.4. Tidens Tegn, 14 July 1936, no. 160, p.2 252
A.5. Aftenposten, 15 July 1936, no. 349 (morning issue), p.3 254
A.6. Aftenposten, 15 July 1936, no. 350 (regular issue), p.1 255
A.7. Arbeiderbladet, 16 July 1936, no. 163, p.13 255
A.8. Arbeiderbladet, 18 July 1936, no. 165, p.5 258
A.9. Tidens Tegn, 18 July 1936, no. 164, p.1 260
Appendix B. Letter from Heegaard to Engel, 24 July 1936 263
Appendix C. Congress Report from Neue Zu¨rcher Zeitung, 9 August 1936 267
Appendix D. Lietzmann’s Unpublished Report on the Congress 271
Appendix E. Report by E. G. Kern, the Nazi functionary in Oslo, to Nazi
headquarters in Berlin, 15 August 1936 285
Appendix F. NewspaperProfileofE.G.Kern,theNazifunctionaryinOslo,4
December 1937 (with Størmer’s Annotation, and Commentary,
and Ketil Kern’s Memoirs) 287
Appendix G. Transcription of Two Recommendations Made by the
Subcommittee on Conferences to the Organizing Committee of
the Planned 1940 ICM 295
Appendix H. Transcription of an Attachment to the Round Letter of the
Organizing Committee of the Planned 1940 ICM, Listing the
Mathematicians Invited 297
viii CONTENTS
Bibliography 299
Archival sources 299
Newspaper articles 300
Congress proceedings 300
1936 plenary lectures 301
Other published sources 302
Name Index 323
Subject Index 331
List of Figures
1.1 Title page of volume I of the proceedings of the Oslo congress 4
1.2 Group photograph at the Oslo congress 6
1.3 Indication of the growth in attendance of the ICMs, 1897–1950 7
1.4 Title page of volume I of the proceedings of the Bologna congress 14
2.1 Carl Størmer (1874–1957) 24
2.2 Alf Guldberg (1866–1936) 27
2.3 Poul Heegaard (1871–1948) 29
2.4 Contemporary postcard featuring a view of Oslo with the sailors’ school
in the foreground 37
2.5 The Abel monument in Oslo 39
2.6 The opening ceremony of the Oslo congress 49
2.7 Photograph of the bust of Sophus Lie given to congress delegates 53
2.8 Tidens Tegn, 14 July 1936b, p.6 56
2.9 Sophus Lie’s grave in Oslo 57
3.1 Walther Lietzmann (1880–1959) 64
3.2 Erhard Schmidt (1876–1959) 66
3.3 Transcription of the official and final list of German delegates 75
3.4 German wreath on the Abel monument in Oslo 80
4.1 A. O. Gel’fond (1906–1968) 90
4.2 A. Ya. Khinchin (1894–1959) 91
5.1 Vito Volterra (1860–1940) 108
5.2 Francesco Severi (1879–1961) 111
9.1 Stereographic image from Størmer’s plenary lecture 163
9.2 Karl Rudolph Fueter (1880–1950) 164
9.3 E´lie Joseph Cartan (1869–1951) arriving in Oslo by boat 167
9.4 Carl Ludwig Siegel (1896–1981) 170
9.5 Oswald Veblen (1880–1960) 174
9.6 Jakob Nielsen (1890–1959) 176
9.7 Erich Hecke (1887–1947) 179
ix