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2012 | Buch

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The Crossing of Heaven

Memoirs of a Mathematician

verfasst von: Karl Gustafson

Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

Among the group of physics honors students huddled in 1957 on a Colorado mountain watching Sputnik bisect the heavens, one young scientist was destined, three short years later, to become a key player in America’s own top-secret spy satellite program. One of our era’s most prolific mathematicians, Karl Gustafson was given just two weeks to write the first US spy satellite’s software. The project would fundamentally alter America’s Cold War strategy, and this autobiographical account of a remarkable academic life spent in the top flight tells this fascinating inside story for the first time.

Gustafson takes you from his early pioneering work in computing, through fascinating encounters with Nobel laureates and Fields medalists, to his current observations on mathematics, science and life. He tells of brushes with death, being struck by lightning, and the beautiful women who have been a part of his journey.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

1. The Child in Iowa

…a cold, bright, sunny day…

Abstract

I was born in the middle of the economic Great Depression on May 7, 1935, in the small town of Manchester in the slightly rolling hills of northeastern Iowa. My first vivid memory is that of being outside pulling my wagon along the sidewalk on a cold, bright, sunny winter day. I was 3, alone, and very happy. My mind was clear, and I was struck by the beauty of the world.

Karl Gustafson

2. The Boy in Boulder

…and a lot of rock climbing…

Abstract

One could barely make out the tiny figure moving slowly down the thin east face of the sandstone spire, which rose like a tooth out of the canyon south of Boulder. Very slowly, the climber descended in a straight line as deep dusk started to obscure all details. Then he seemed to disappear into a tiny depression on the right side of the face, about two-thirds of the way down. Silence reigned as darkness set in.

Karl Gustafson

3. The Student in Poverty

…survival and success…

Abstract

“Do you want to sleep in the bathroom, or in the coal bin?” Air Force veteran Tom Anderson asked Navy submarine veterans Doug McDonald and Ed Neil. Doug and Ed looked at each other and promptly replied in unison: “The coal bin, of course!” Tom turned to me, “Well, Karl, I guess we get the bathroom.” Such was how the four of us began our student careers at the University of Colorado in the fall of 1953: three GI Bill Korean War veterans, and the youngster, me. The entry to the basement apartment was down three steps at the back of the house at 1012 15th Street, just a stone’s throw from campus. A tiny kitchen with an old two-burner gas stove and no space for a table led to a larger room with four desks pressed against the walls, and a single small table in the center. At the far end a small door opened into a converted coal bin that had barely enough space for its two-tiered bunk beds against one wall. No windows. To the right was the other basement room, which held two small beds on an old concrete floor, along with a toilet behind a small partition and an open shower whose water just ran to the basement drain. The veterans had chosen this basement rat-hole for two reasons: It was very close to campus, and we could pay the rent.

Karl Gustafson

4. Computers and Espionage

…and the world’s first spy satellite…

Abstract

It was 1959 and the Cold War was escalating steadily, moving from a state of palpable sustained tension toward the overt threat to global peace to be posed by the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis – the closest the world has ever come to nuclear war. Quite by chance, I found myself thrust into this vortex, involved in top-level espionage work. I would soon write the software for the world’s first spy satellite.

Karl Gustafson

5. First Publication

…and a very strange letter…

Abstract

I had kept my promise to the military. Not only had I fulfilled the primary task of my critical skilled enlistment – computerizing direction finding – but I had also by chance significantly advanced the GRAB intelligence satellite program. When I asked my Navy superiors in 1962 if I might reduce my commitment to 20 hours a week, in order to begin graduate school in mathematics at the University of Maryland, they were happy to oblige. The only condition was that I would be “on call” if they needed me for anything urgent.

Karl Gustafson

6. Into Academia

…despite the politics…

Abstract

When my Ph.D. advisor Larry Payne heard I was leaving Minnesota to go to Colorado, he told me, “Sure, I understand, you want to go home…but you know, that Math Department out there has always messed things up. Almost always, they do.” Larry seldom said anything bad about anybody. But his words would turn out to be prophetic indeed.

Karl Gustafson

7. The World Opens

… a community of scholars …

Abstract

It was May 17, 1972, and as we approached the first line of barbed wire separating the border of Austria from that of Hungary, the taxi driver I had hired in Vienna looked at me apprehensively and said, “I hope this works….” The Austrian border police looked at our passports and told him in German, “Good luck!” and waved us through into the no-man’s land between the countries. As I looked left and right I saw foreboding Hungarian military watch towers and machine guns pointing at us as we drove about a mile to the Hungarian side of the border. After a short discussion with the Hungarian officers, my driver looked at me apologetically and told me either we both must go back, or he can drop me here and I can hope to get a visa at the border station. I hopped out and waved him goodbye as I proceeded to the border.

Karl Gustafson

8. Personas and Personalities

…and a penetrating theorem…

Abstract

There’s that story that when God created the Universe, and the Earth, and the United States of America, and the favored professions therein, he wanted to give them good things. To the medical doctors he gave high salaries, to the lawyers he gave fascinating cases, to the carpenters he gave fine lumber, and to the professors he gave low teaching loads. Then he thought, I need to keep things balanced here, good means nothing unless compared to bad. So to the medical doctors he gave 4 a.m. surgery schedules, to the lawyers he gave vicious and unreliable clients, to the carpenters he gave unemployment, and to the professors he gave…colleagues.

Karl Gustafson

9. Wives, Lovers, Friends

…and a great loss…

Abstract

Anyone with a rich personal life has both bright and less bright episodes in their past. Some choose to lead a more sterile life in order to not risk emotional setbacks. Upon review, mine has not been a sterile life. But I was a late bloomer.

Karl Gustafson

10. Close Calls

…in particular, the lightning strike…

Abstract

Most of us tend to take it for granted when we arise in the morning that we will live through the day. Even knowing that there is no certainty of that, why spend precious time considering what possibilities will confirm our mortality? But few of us reach the “real event” without some close calls to prepare us, moments where we are given a preview of the fine line that lies between life and death…and a chance to be grateful for the ability to greet another day.

Karl Gustafson

11. Mathematics

…and some science…

Abstract

Mathematics is akin to a foreign language to those who do not know it. It is not really possible to become fluent in a language unless you are long-immersed within it. When asked what I do or teach and I answer, “Mathematics,” the reaction is often a disinterested, “Oh.” That is a shame: mathematics can be beautiful. And of course it is useful.

Karl Gustafson

12. High Finance

…and dangers of overquantization…

Abstract

Schachermayer paused, chuckled, and beamed at this familiar gathering of financial derivatives friends who had gathered in Germany to honor the retirement of one of their own, Professor Hans Föllmer. We were in Berlin and it was June 9, 2007. I was there by chance.

Karl Gustafson

13. The Improbabilities

…and the imponderables…

Abstract

We all seek to know the meaning of our existence. Why are we here to work, love, play, suffer, wonder, die? This question, the meaning of it all, is the great imponderable.

Karl Gustafson

14. Realities

…and time is running out…

Abstract

The realities of our lives always take over. They are inescapable as long as we are here, breathing, existing, thinking. One may wax philosophic about their meaning or delve scientific into their origin. But such abstractions are really a leisure activity. The realities of our lives actually determine, describe, and thereby define much of the meaning of our lives.

Karl Gustafson

15. The Crossing of Heaven

Abstract

His skis were running well now. When he started out, the trail had been icy, with just a sprinkling of new snow; but as he headed higher into the mountains, that new snow of last night was now an inch deep. Why had he not skied during the last five years?

Karl Gustafson

Titel: The Crossing of Heaven
verfasst von: Karl Gustafson
Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-642-22558-1
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-22557-4
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22558-1

Springer Professional

Über dieses Buch

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

1. The Child in Iowa

2. The Boy in Boulder

3. The Student in Poverty

4. Computers and Espionage

5. First Publication

6. Into Academia

7. The World Opens

8. Personas and Personalities

9. Wives, Lovers, Friends

10. Close Calls

11. Mathematics

12. High Finance

13. The Improbabilities

14. Realities

15. The Crossing of Heaven

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