Constance Bowman Reid (January 3, 1918 – October 14, 2010)
[
]
was the
author
An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states:
"''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...
of several biographies of
mathematicians
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems.
Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change.
History
One ...
and popular books about
mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
. She received several awards for mathematical exposition. She was not a mathematician but came from a mathematical family—one of her sisters was
Julia Robinson
Julia Hall Bowman Robinson (December 8, 1919July 30, 1985) was an American mathematician noted for her contributions to the fields of computability theory and computational complexity theory—most notably in decision problems. Her work on Hilber ...
, and her brother-in-law was
Raphael M. Robinson.
Background and education
Reid was born in
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...
, the daughter of Ralph Bowers Bowman and Helen (Hall) Bowman.
One of her younger sisters was the mathematician
Julia Robinson
Julia Hall Bowman Robinson (December 8, 1919July 30, 1985) was an American mathematician noted for her contributions to the fields of computability theory and computational complexity theory—most notably in decision problems. Her work on Hilber ...
. The family moved to
Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, AlÄ á¹£onak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
and then to
San Diego
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...
when the girls were a few years old.
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In 1950 she married a law student, Neil D. Reid, with whom she had two children, Julia and Stewart.
[
]
Reid received a
Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...
degree from
San Diego State University
San Diego State University (SDSU) is a public research university in San Diego, California. Founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, it is the third-oldest university and southernmost in the 23-member California State University (CSU) system ...
in 1938 and a
Master of Education
The Master of Education (MEd or M.Ed. or Ed.M.; Latin ''Magister Educationis'' or ''Educationis Magister'') is a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. This degree in education often includes the following majors: curriculum a ...
degree from
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
in 1949. She worked as a teacher of English and journalism from 1939 to 1950, and as a
free-lance writer since then.
She has said, "I always wanted to be a writer, but it took me a while to find my subject."
Works
Reid's first published work was a memoir of her work in a
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
bomber factory, ''Slacks and Calluses'', published in 1944. She also published a short story.
Her first mathematical publication was an article on
perfect numbers
In number theory, a perfect number is a positive integer that is equal to the sum of its positive divisors, excluding the number itself. For instance, 6 has divisors 1, 2 and 3 (excluding itself), and 1 + 2 + 3 = 6, so 6 is a perfect number.
T ...
for ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...
''.
Reid remarked in an interview that some readers objected to her as an author: "But the readers (maybe, just one reader, I have forgotten now) objected that articles in ''Scientific American'' should be written by authorities in their fields and not by housewives!"
[
]
The ''Scientific American'' article led to an invitation from Robert L. Crowell of the
Thomas Y. Crowell Co.
Thomas Y. Crowell Co. was a publishing company founded by Thomas Y. Crowell. The company began as a bookbindery founded by Benjamin Bradley in 1834. Crowell operated the business after Bradley's death in 1862 and eventually purchased the compan ...
publishing house to write "a little book on numbers"
that became ''
From Zero to Infinity
''From Zero to Infinity: What Makes Numbers Interesting'' is a book in popular mathematics and number theory by Constance Reid. It was originally published in 1955 by the Thomas Y. Crowell Company. The fourth edition was published in 1992 by the ...
''. Two more popular math books for Crowell followed: ''Introduction to Higher Mathematics for the General Reader'' in 1959 and ''A Long Way from Euclid'' in 1963.
After writing these books she felt she had run out of ideas, and her sister
Julia Robinson
Julia Hall Bowman Robinson (December 8, 1919July 30, 1985) was an American mathematician noted for her contributions to the fields of computability theory and computational complexity theory—most notably in decision problems. Her work on Hilber ...
suggested that she should update
Eric Temple Bell
Eric Temple Bell (7 February 1883 – 21 December 1960) was a Scottish-born mathematician and science fiction writer who lived in the United States for most of his life. He published non-fiction using his given name and fiction as John Tain ...
's collection of mathematical biographies, ''
Men of Mathematics
''Men of Mathematics: The Lives and Achievements of the Great Mathematicians from Zeno to Poincaré'' is a book on the history of mathematics published in 1937 by Scottish-born American mathematician and science fiction writer E. T. Bell (1883â ...
.
[
]
After travelling to
Göttingen
Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...
to absorb some mathematical culture, Reid decided instead to write a full-length biography of
David Hilbert, who she considered the greatest mathematician of the first half of the twentieth century.
Julia encouraged her in this project, and the biography was published in 1970 as ''Hilbert''. The Hilbert biography was a success among mathematicians,
and her next book was a biography of another Göttingen figure,
Richard Courant
Richard Courant (January 8, 1888 – January 27, 1972) was a German American mathematician. He is best known by the general public for the book '' What is Mathematics?'', co-written with Herbert Robbins. His research focused on the areas of real ...
, published in 1976 as ''Courant in Göttingen and New York''. Her next book, published in 1982, was a biography of the mathematical statistician
Jerzy Neyman
Jerzy Neyman (April 16, 1894 – August 5, 1981; born Jerzy Spława-Neyman; ) was a Polish mathematician and statistician who spent the first part of his professional career at various institutions in Warsaw, Poland and then at University Colleg ...
, who like Courant had emigrated to the United States and built a new career there.
An attempt to write a biography of
Eric Temple Bell
Eric Temple Bell (7 February 1883 – 21 December 1960) was a Scottish-born mathematician and science fiction writer who lived in the United States for most of his life. He published non-fiction using his given name and fiction as John Tain ...
proved unexpectedly difficult, as he had been very secretive about his early life. Reid discovered that Bell, a native of Scotland, as a young man had spent twelve years in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
but had never revealed this to his wife or his son. The resulting book, ''The Search for E. T. Bell'', published in 1993, is more of a detective story than a true biography.
Her sister Julia gradually became more famous, and was elected to the
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
in 1976 and President of the
American Mathematical Society
The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...
in 1983. Several people had suggested to Constance that she write a biography of Julia, but Julia always refused to cooperate because she felt scientific biographies should be about science, not about personalities.
In 1985, when Julia was dying, she unbent enough to allow Constance to write a biographical sketch of her, that was published after Julia's death as "The Autobiography of Julia Robinson" (written by Constance but written in the first person as if by Julia)
The sketch was published with additional material as a book, ''Julia: A Life in Mathematics'' in 1996.
Awards
Reid won several awards for mathematical exposition. These include:
*
Mathematical Association of America's
George Pólya
George Pólya (; hu, Pólya György, ; December 13, 1887 – September 7, 1985) was a Hungarian mathematician. He was a professor of mathematics from 1914 to 1940 at ETH Zürich and from 1940 to 1953 at Stanford University. He made fundamenta ...
Award in 1987 for her article "The Autobiography of Julia Robinson"
*
Mathematical Association of America's Beckenbach Book Prize in 1996 for her book ''The Search for E. T. Bell : Also Known as John Taine''
*
Joint Policy Board for Mathematics
The Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM) consists of the American Mathematical Society, the American Statistical Association, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
The Board has ne ...
1998 Communications Award
[
] for the body of her work in bringing accurate mathematical information to non-mathematical audiences
Publications
*
*
*''
From zero to infinity. What makes numbers interesting.'' Fifth edition. Fiftieth anniversary edition. A K Peters, Ltd., Wellesley, MA, 2006. xviii+188 pp.
*
*''A long way from Euclid.'' Reprint of the 1963 original. Dover Publications, Inc., Mineola, NY, 2004.
*''
Courant in Göttingen and New York. The story of an improbable mathematician.'' Springer-Verlag, New York–Heidelberg, 1976. Reprint of the 1976 original: Copernicus, New York, 1996.
*''
Neyman.'' Reprint of the 1982 original. Springer-Verlag, New York, 1998.
*''
Hilbert
David Hilbert (; ; 23 January 1862 – 14 February 1943) was a German mathematician, one of the most influential mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many ...
.'' Reprint of the 1970 original. Copernicus, New York, 1996.
*''Julia. A life in mathematics.'' MAA Spectrum. Mathematical Association of America, Washington, DC, 1996.
*''The Search for E. T. Bell : Also Known as John Taine.'' Mathematical Association of America, Washington, DC, 1993.
[Reviews of ''The Search for E. T. Bell'':
*
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*''Slacks and Calluses: Our Summer in a Bomber Factory'' (autobiography) Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, 1999. Reprint of Longmans, Green, New York, 1944 edition.
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reid, Constance
2010 deaths
American biographers
American science writers
American women non-fiction writers
1918 births
University of California, Berkeley alumni
San Diego State University alumni
Mathematicians from Missouri
Writers from St. Louis
Writers from San Francisco