Maths and the monks

摘要

On the wall of the maths department of Moscow University, there used to be a family tree tracing links-who men-tored whom-between dozens of Russian and Soviet mathematicians and scientists of the 20th century. Towards the bottom are some leaders of the Soviet space and nuclear programmes. Near the top is Nikolai Luzin, a brilliant, tortured mathematician, straddling the tsarist and Soviet eras, who was also a devout follower of the name-glorifying movement. Two scholars-Jean-Michel Kantor, a French mathematician, and Loren Graham, an American philosopher of science-see this as more than a biographical detail.