New Look at Some Old Bearded Mathematicians

“Maxime Bôcher [pictured here], with his square beard and squarer shoes, was presiding. In the back of the room, with a different beard but equal dignity, William Fogg Osgood was counseling a student.”

—from George David Birkhoff and His Mathematical Work, by Marston Morse, Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, May 1946, page 357.

Here is a photograph of William Fogg Osgood’s beard, with William Fogg Osgood:

We have not managed to find a photograph of Maxime Bôcher’s shoes.