Travel Thoughts

Tram from Edinburgh Airport to City Center

Travel is wonderful - a privilege and an adventure - seeing new places, learning new things, meeting new people.  But, generally, at least for a long trip, travel can be grueling.  Sitting for many hours at a time is tiring and can cause pain and stiffness - getting your bearings in a new place can be tiring - getting to town after 15 hours of air travel and not being able to check into your room for 6 hours can be frustrating.  And then there are issues of delayed trains leading to missed trains (as happened to me yesterday on my way from Edinburgh to Lincoln) and other such things.

My trip has been good, but some of the glitches I've had and my minor frustrations over them have made me think of stories of travels some of the mathematicians I'm studying - and these remembrances have made me thankful for how very good I have it!

The first person who comes to mind is Leonhard Euler (1707-1783), who on TODAY'S DATE - April 5 - in 1727 left Basel, Switzerland for St. Petersburg, Russia.  He had hoped to find a post in Basel, but the mathematical Bernoulli family pretty much had a corner on the mathematical positions in Basel.  (It isn't normally the case that mathematical talent runs in families, but the Bernoulli family was an exception and are similar in mathematics to the Bach family in music!)  The St. Petersburg position was only open to him when one of the members of the Bernoulli family (Nicholaus II) died, thus vacating it!  He didn't arrive until May 17, 1727.  It took SIX WEEKS for him to travel those 2,500 miles.  It took me ONE DAY to travel TWICE that far: from San Francisco to Edinburgh.  I took two airplanes and sat in a chair as I hurtled through the sky.  He took a boat down the Rhine River, a post wagon across the states of Germany, and then another boat from Lubeck, across the Baltic Sea, to St. Petersburg.

The second person that comes to mind is Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576), who on February 23, 1552 left Milan, Italy to being his journey to Edinburgh, Scotland in order to give medical care to Archbishop Hamilton.  Cardano was the second greatest physician of his age, the greatest being Andreas Vesalius.  Three weeks later, Cardano, having ridden on horseback through the Simplon Pass, Valais and Geneva to Lyon, France.  When he arrived, the archbishop's personal physician, Casanatus, was not there to meet him as had been the plan, but this didn't worry Cardano, as he knew that Scotland was far away and that crossing the channel was often impossible for long stretches of time during the winter.  Casanatus finally arrive, and on May 1 they set out for Paris on horseback.  His time in Paris ended up being prolonged.  He finally arrived in Scotland on the 29th of June, eighteen weeks and one day after having set out.  (This not only reminds me of how good I have it in traveling, but it makes me think of when I call the doctor's office and the first thing that happens is that I hear a recorded message saying, "If this is a medical emergency, hang up and dial 911 for immediate assistance."  I guess back in the day you just had to wait for good help!)  Cardano was able to successfully treat the archbishop, who had been near death from increasingly frequent and increasingly severe attacks of asthma.  The archbishop went on to live nearly another 20 years before being executed for his part in the plot to kill Lord Darnley, husband of Mary, Queen of Scots.  I had hoped to travel to Monimail in the Kingdom of Fife to see what remains of the Bishop's Tower; it is about 25 miles north of Burntisland, which I visited for Mary Somerville, but one more stop just wasn't possible, unfortunately.  While in Scotland, Cardano spent significant time in Edinburgh, so he would have seen the landscape I saw there, at least in part - Arthur's Seat, Calton Hill, Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace, the Firth of Forth, etc.

Holyrood Park - Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags

The third person that comes to mind is Henry Briggs (1561-1630), who was the first professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London.  Briggs had a strong interest in astronomy, especially eclipses, so when John Napier invented logarithms Henry Briggs recognized immediately their tremendous value in simplifying the complicated calculations involved in astronomy.  (It was later said by Laplace that Napier's invention had "doubled the life of the astronomer" by this powerful simplification).  Briggs was so impressed by Napier's work that he decided to pay him a visit, traveling from London to Edinburgh, which today takes about 4 hours by train.  In 1615 it took Briggs four DAYS by horse and coach.  Napier, it seems, was as impressed with Briggs as Briggs was with Napier.  It is reported that once Briggs arrived he and Napier stood and admired each other for nearly a full quarter of an hour before one word was spoken - as reported by Napier's friend John Marr who was present at the meeting.  They would have met in Napier's Castle, the tower of which remains to this day and is incorporated into Napier University, Edinbrugh, Merchiston Campus.

Napier's Tower

Actually one other famous travel story comes to mind, and this one has to do with G. H. Hardy (1877-1947).  I don't want to say too much about Hardy now, as my next stop (if I survive my travels tomorrow) is Cambridge, where I will be studying Hardy closely and will be hosted by a doctoral student in mathematics there who has a special interest in Hardy.  I will share this one travel story, however.  Hardy was friends with and collaborated with Danish mathematician Harald Bohr (brother of famous physicist Niels Bohr).  Hardy was an avowed atheist.  He was at such war with God that he ended up making God a huge part of his life!  Though he didn't believe in God, Hardy always felt God was out to get him.  When leaving Denmark to travel home to Cambridge, Hardy was concerned that the sea voyage was going to be particularly rough, so he took out a quirky insurance policy.  Before getting on the ship he mailed a postcard to Harald saying, "I've solve the Riemann Hypothesis" (the most important unproven hypothesis then and now).  Hardy was confident God would not let him die, leaving the world to think he had solved Riemann.

Unlike Hardy, I don't think God's out to get me - in fact, quite the opposite - but I'll be driving in the UK tomorrow for the first time.  Public transit doesn't go from here to where I need to go - at least not in a reasonable period of time (the burial site of Ada Byron Lovelace and the birthplace of Sir Isaac Newton), and a taxi or Uber ride of the length would be prohibitively expensive, so I've had to rent a car.  I don't even like driving in the US where the cars, the roads and the rules are familiar to me, yet, so dedicated am I to these mathematical journeys, that tomorrow I am going to drive in a "reversed" car on the opposite side of the road, trying to figure out unfamiliar road signs in unfamiliar territory, without anyone with me to navigate.  I'm a little terrified (more than a little, actually) and hoping I don't end up dying or killing anyone else!

Oh - hey - I think I just found a proof to Riemann!  

Details to come!!!!