The Mind of the Mathematician

Preface

vii Preface Psychologists have long been fascinated by mathematicians and their world. In this book we start with a tour of the extensive literature on the psychology of mathematicians and related matters, such as the source of mathematical creativity. By limiting both mathematical and psychological technicalities , or explaining them when necessary, we seek to make our review of research in this field easily readable by both mathematicians and psychologists . In the belief that they might also wish to learn about some of the human beings who helped to create modern mathematics, we go on to profile twenty well-known mathematicians of the past whose personalities we find particularly interesting. These profiles serve to illustrate our tour of the literature. Among the many people we have consulted in the course of writing this book we would particularly like to thank Ann Dowker, Jean Mawhin, Allan Muir, Daniel Nettle, Brendan O’Brien, Susan Lantz, and Mikhail Treisman. We also wish to thank Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio (www.ohio .edu/oupress), for granting permission to reprint an excerpt from Don H. Kennedy’s biography of Sonya Kovalevskaya, Little Sparrow: A Portrait of Sonya Kovalevskaya. This page intentionally left blank ...