Memories

Academically speaking, mathematics was my first love. There was a time, though, when I was seriously considering taking a different route. For a couple of years in high school, I was thinking about a career in law, as a springboard to politics. [My older-and-perhaps-wiser self guffaws at the thought....] While roaming the downtown San Diego library, though, I ran across a book entitled The Nature and Growth of Modern Mathematics, by Edna Kramer.

I checked out the book.

I read the book.

I abandoned all thoughts of any other career.

Today, one of our recent retirees left a pile of books he no longer wanted, to be picked through by all comers. One of them was a well-preserved copy of The Nature and Growth of Modern Mathematics, which I snatched up. Flipping through it, I can see what recaptured my attention so many years ago.

:sighs happily: