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Science, computers, and people: From the tree of mathematics
ADVANCES
IN MATHEMATICS
64, 86 (1987)
Book
Review
STANISLAW M. ULAM, Science, Computers, and People: From the Tree of Mathematics (Mark C. Reynolds and Gian-Carlo Rota, Eds.), Preface by Martin Gardner, Birkhauser, Boston, 1986 xxi + 264 pp.
Ularn is a mythic mathematician. He plays agaiut a variety of American values: hard work-apercus, insights, ideas, and infinite fertility characterize him; the ideal of the ivory tower of pure thought-“Bring me your tired, your worn, your concrete problems...” and I will make mathematics out of them; lone genius-collaboration was his ideal mode; get rich off your ideas-others seem to have been the entrepreneurs, Ulam the inventor. And of course, like much of what is American, he is Polish (or it could be Hungarian in this mythic realm). All of this leads to second-rate hagiography, when in fact his actual writings are modest yet filled with ideas worth stealing. Like Walter Benjamin and Wittgenstein, Ulam seems to defy a truly human account. Ulam’s reputation is haunted by that “idea” he had for the hydrogen bomb. But his understanding of complex systems in biology or in computation, and of complex people, is how he ought be known. MARTIN H. KRIECER Unioersit~~qf Southern Cal$ornia
Primed
in Belgium
86 OOOl-8708/87$7.50 Copyright .t 1987 by Academic Press. Inc. All rights 01 reproductmn in any lorm reserved.
IN MATHEMATICS
64, 86 (1987)
Book
Review
STANISLAW M. ULAM, Science, Computers, and People: From the Tree of Mathematics (Mark C. Reynolds and Gian-Carlo Rota, Eds.), Preface by Martin Gardner, Birkhauser, Boston, 1986 xxi + 264 pp.
Ularn is a mythic mathematician. He plays agaiut a variety of American values: hard work-apercus, insights, ideas, and infinite fertility characterize him; the ideal of the ivory tower of pure thought-“Bring me your tired, your worn, your concrete problems...” and I will make mathematics out of them; lone genius-collaboration was his ideal mode; get rich off your ideas-others seem to have been the entrepreneurs, Ulam the inventor. And of course, like much of what is American, he is Polish (or it could be Hungarian in this mythic realm). All of this leads to second-rate hagiography, when in fact his actual writings are modest yet filled with ideas worth stealing. Like Walter Benjamin and Wittgenstein, Ulam seems to defy a truly human account. Ulam’s reputation is haunted by that “idea” he had for the hydrogen bomb. But his understanding of complex systems in biology or in computation, and of complex people, is how he ought be known. MARTIN H. KRIECER Unioersit~~qf Southern Cal$ornia
Primed
in Belgium
86 OOOl-8708/87$7.50 Copyright .t 1987 by Academic Press. Inc. All rights 01 reproductmn in any lorm reserved.