Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-pkt8n Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-28T04:21:35.889Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

19 - Last thoughts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2014

T. W. Körner
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access

Summary

A mathematical career

[When I first started research, I and my fellow students were much in awe of Dusa MacDuff, a research student a couple of years older than us. We knew that she had just made an important breakthrough in a major problem left open by von Neumann concerning the existence of II1 factors. (Here and in the passage that follows the reader will need to accept technical terms on trust.) To us, as I expect to most of my readers, this seemed the most splendid thing possible, and the climax of a mathematical career. As we shall see below, to someone who wanted to do mathematics at the very highest level, it could only represent a beginning.

The speech that follows was given by Dusa MacDuff on the occasion of her acceptance of the first Satter prize. Since this prize was created to ‘recognise an outstanding contribution to mathematical research by a woman in the previous five years’ she, quite properly, dwells on the problems of women in what is still a mainly male profession. However, many of the problems she considers — the difficulty of changing mathematical fields, mathematical isolation and failures of inspiration — are common to both sexes. Some readers may be surprised by the way professional and personal considerations are mingled, but at the highest level of endeavour (and often at lower levels), mathematical and private life must overlap and sometimes conflict. Mathematics is not a nine-to-five job.]

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Last thoughts
  • T. W. Körner, University of Cambridge
  • Book: The Pleasures of Counting
  • Online publication: 05 May 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107050563.020
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Last thoughts
  • T. W. Körner, University of Cambridge
  • Book: The Pleasures of Counting
  • Online publication: 05 May 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107050563.020
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Last thoughts
  • T. W. Körner, University of Cambridge
  • Book: The Pleasures of Counting
  • Online publication: 05 May 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107050563.020
Available formats
×