03 A biography of a mathematician

[Evelyn]

There are so many good books to choose from here! I loved Remembering Sofya Kovalevskaya, which is a bit of a stretch to classify as a biography. So I might go for a more traditional biography about Kovalevskaya. John Napier: Life, Logarithms, and Legacy has been on my shelf for a while. One of my favorite books from 2019 was Julia: A Life in Mathematics. It's a short read, but very moving, and I loved seeing so many archival pictures of Robinson and her family.
Share your recommendations below!

[Amie]

I read it many years ago but I loved The Man Who Loved Only Numbers by Paul Hoffman.

[Jo]

I liked My Brain is Open: The Mathematical Journeys of Paul Erdos by Bruce Schechter better than The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, although both are good.

[Enrique]

I like The Man who loved only numbers about Paul Erdos, The Man who knew infinity about Ramanujan and Hardy, Logicomix about Bertrand Russell. I really like (but it is not quite a biography) Euler: The Master of us all.

[Gary]

I am a mathematician N Wiener
I want to be a mathematician Paul Halmos
Adventures of a mathematician Stanislaw Ulam

[Colin]

I've mentioned elsewhere that I enjoyed Genius At Play: The Curious Mind of John Horton Conway; next in my reading list is The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom. In the past, I enjoyed The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, which is hefty but full of dry wit.

[Evelyn]

Alan Turing: The Enigma is an intimidating one that's been on my shelf for a while. It was originally published in 1983, so I could use it for either this prompt or a math book published the year I was born. (It's about 700 pages, so I might have to use it for both!)

[Jeanine]

Hmm, I would like to read Hidden Figures: The Untold Story of the African American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race for this challenge, but wonder in which category this would fit best. It's closest to this one maybe, but it's not really a biography, so it might fit better in 07, but I'm not sure yet how much it really is a "math book".

[Svenja]

I was gifted Meine Herren, dies ist keine Badeanstalt: Wie ein Mathematiker das 20. Jahrhundert veränderte, a biography about Hilbert in German, a while back and also have Genius At Play: The Curious Mind of John Horton Conway, but haven't read either yet. This may be the year for that!

[Huw]

A book i couldn't put down and was such an inspiration to me is "the man who knew infinity" by Robert kanigel. It's the story of the short life of Srinivasa Ramanujan. Wow, this book blew me away, totally self educated on maths, as a youngster he was so poor that he couldn't afford paper and wrote his equations in the dirt. He even invented his own brand of maths. There's a famous quote from GH Hardy were somebody asked him his greatest contribution to mathematics and his answer was his discovery of Ramanujan and he even called their collaboration "the one romantic incident in my life '.

[Ming Chyang]

I read Hilbert-Courant written by Constance Reid. The book is interesting and I get to know the life of mathematicians in 20th century. It is suitable for those who wants to know the mathematics circle in Germany at 20th century.

[Kim]

Min wrote: "Is there a thorough (and mathematically technical) biography of Noether, or any biography besides Auguste Dick's? Not that it was bad, but I want something a little more substantial."

I would suggest that you look up her name on WorldCat. It seems you may be able to find more about her mathematical works from an academic library.
My favorite author, Ian Stewart, wrote a chapter about her in his book, "Significant Figures", so I would recommend that book to anyone who wants to read about a lot of different mathematicians.

[Kim]

Min wrote: "Is there a thorough (and mathematically technical) biography of Noether, or any biography besides Auguste Dick's? Not that it was bad, but I want something a little more substantial."

Hi Min,
Have you seen this wikibook page?
It lists all the abstract algebra that she developed.
Here's the link:
https://en.m.wikibooks.org/w/index.ph...

[Kim]

Min wrote: "Kim,

Thank you for the resources.

I've only taken a quick look at the worldcat search results with two results that I've also seen before: a juvenille's book (which may be good for a different ca..."

Hi Min,
I humbly say, "You're welcome."
I know someone who is taking the class Abstract Algebra at a University. The author of the text book is John Beachy, if that helps.