(Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians? - MathOverflow

(Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2011-03-15T17:45:54Z

Terence Tao's homepage has a link to a collection of quotes, and one among them was Hilbert's famous "We must know, we will know" quote. This quote also had an audio link to it. Now although I'm not sure if it is really Hilbert's voice in the link, this prompted me to ask if we could have a collection of (rare) audio/video recordings of mathematicians which are freely available on the internet.

Let me add, however, that I am not asking for audio/video recordings of mathematicians which are fairly recent (a typical example of which I am NOT asking for are TED talks or podcasts). Recordings of famous mathematicians of the early twentieth and mid twentieth century will be wonderful. (I've always wanted to find out how Von Neumann's voice sounded like!).

Addendum: Are there any videos or audio excerpts of any talks given by Grothendieck which are available anywhere? I'd be grateful if anyone could post any such links. Thanks in advance.

Answer by J Verma for (Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2011-03-15T18:45:21Z

Here's is one of Einstein

Answer by Alberto Santini for (Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2011-03-15T18:54:41Z

On YouTube there are a lot from Paul Erdős. Not to mention the wonderful movie N is a number.

Answer by Igor Khavkine for (Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2011-03-15T19:04:24Z

The title of this one from YouTube is Einstein, Dirac, Godel, Selberg, Harish-Chandra in Princeton. No audio, unfortunately. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsIlRr65-L4&NR=1

Answer by Robert Israel for (Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2011-03-15T23:35:40Z

Apparently that really was Hilbert's voice: see http://math.sfsu.edu/smith/Documents/HilbertRadio/HilbertRadio.pdf for more about this speech.

Answer by John Sidles for (Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2011-03-16T00:18:49Z

The voice of John von Neumann dedicating the NORC computer in 1954 (short excerpt and full speech).

The wire recording is a bit murky; here is my best-effort transcript of the short excerpt:

"Those of you present who have lived with this field, and who have lived with and suffered with computing machines of various sorts, and know what kind of regime it is to invest in one, I'm sure have appreciated the fact that it appears that this machine has been completely assembled less than two months ago, has been run on problems less than two weeks ago, and yesterday already ran for four hours without making a mistake. Those of you who have not been exposed to computing machines, and who do not have the desolate feeling which goes with living with their mistakes, will appreciate what it means that a computing machine, after about two weeks of breaking in, has really a faultless run of four hours. It is completely fantastic on an object of this size; I doubt it has ever been achieved before, and it is an enormous reassurance regarding the state of the art and regarding the complexities to which one will be able to go in the future, that this has been achieved."

Here is the BibTeX reference to a printed version (which differs slightly from the speech).

@incollection{vonNeumann:54,
Author = {J. von Neumann},
Booktitle = {John von Neumann Collected Works},
Editor = {A. H. Taub},
Publisher = {Pergamon Press},
Title = {The N.O.R.C.~and Problems in High Speed Computing},
Volume = {5},
Year = 1954,
Pages = 238--247}

Answer by François Brunault for (Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2011-03-16T12:30:28Z

Here are some videos of French mathematicians :

André Lichnerowicz, speaking about mathematical structures in 1966 : http://www.ina.fr/economie-et-societe/education-et-enseignement/video/I00002874/andre-lichnerowicz-sur-les-mathematiques.fr.html

Laurent Schwartz, speaking about the student contestations in France in May 1968 : http://www.ina.fr/politique/gouvernements/video/I00005058/le-professeur-laurent-schwartz.fr.html

There is also a video tape of an interview of Laurent Schwartz made by the École polytechnique in 1995 (it is not available online but can be purchased here). It contains, among others, a short video extract from a lecture he gave (long ago) to the Polytechnique students. His enthusiast lecturing style is remembered by many, if not all, students from these times.

Finally, the following audio file contains an interview of the probabilist Paul Lévy (1886-1971) made by the French radio "France Culture" in 1971 : http://www.jehps.net/Juin2006/levy.mp3

Answer by Daniel Pape for (Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2011-03-16T14:41:02Z

Jean Dieudonné, Bourbaki secretary and author of the nine-volume "Foundations of Modern Analysis" giving an interview on french television about his book "Pour l'honneur de l'esprit humain : les mathématiques aujourd'hui":

http://www.ina.fr/art-et-culture/litterature/video/CPB87005869/les-livres-du-mois.fr.html

Answer by Marko Amnell for (Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2011-03-16T15:54:01Z

Bertrand Russell, co-author (with Alfred North Whitehead) of Principia Mathematica, interviewed on BBC television in 1959 (three parts):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OziPcicgmbw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TedtMmUq8ig

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7I9pgqiLo0

Answer by none for (Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2011-03-18T05:56:16Z

First thing I thought of was the Princeton oral history project about math in the 1930's:

http://www.princeton.edu/~mudd/finding_aids/mathoral/mathnew2.htm

however they don't seem to have the audio online (just transcripts of the interviews, that are still very interesting). I wonder if the audio tapes are accessible at the Mudd library or elsewhere.

Answer by David Farris for (Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2011-03-18T10:39:17Z

Another place you can watch Bertrand Russell is in Aman (1967), to my knowledge the unique appearance of a mathematician in a Bollywood film. The relevant part is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGqLXOFFlqo ,

in which Russell talks with a medical student who is proposing to do research on atom bomb survivors in Japan.

(The Hindi voiceover during the interview just repeats what they're saying in English. In the 30 seconds before Russell appears, the dialogue roughly translates as "A letter from Bertrand Russell! Gee whiz!"

Answer by Michael for (Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2011-04-03T08:33:50Z

The Eugene B. Dynkin Collection of Mathematics Interviews

Answer by Koundinya Vajjha for (Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2011-04-20T05:35:26Z

I found the video recording of The Atle Selberg Memorial which was held at the IAS a few years back. There is an "archival clip" of Selberg at the IAS included in the same page. This may be the same video which others have already posted. I apologize if it is. Nevertheless, the video recording of the memorial should be of interest.

Also, here is an interview (in PDF format) of his wherein he discusses the dispute arising from the Prime Number Theorem and his trace formula among other things. It makes for a very good reading over a cup of steaming hot coffee.

Answer by Koundinya Vajjha for (Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2011-05-11T12:06:05Z

In this interview, John H. Conway is interviewed by Chaim Goodman-Strauss for the "Math Factor". The interview mainly focusses on Conway's long time collaboration with the legendary Martin Gardner. Only audio.

Answer by Michael for (Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2012-07-08T11:03:09Z

Three lectures by John Milnor on differential topology from 1965:

https://simonsfoundation.org/milnor-archive#1

(Don't know if they had been mentioned in the other video related questions.)

Answer by Chandan Singh Dalawat for (Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2012-07-08T13:05:06Z

Science Lives - Simons Foundation,

[a] series of extended interviews with some of the giants of twentieth century mathematics and science,

currently hosts video interviews with

Pierre Deligne, Robert D. MacPherson, Egbert Brieskorn, Paul Sally, Yuri Manin, Chen-ning Yang, Friedrich Hirzebruch, Isadore Singer, and Michael Atiyah.

Answer by Chandan Singh Dalawat for (Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2012-07-08T13:26:26Z

James Arthur on the History of the Langlands Program.

Answer by Chandrasekhar for (Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2012-07-08T15:11:15Z

Timothy Gowers here on youtube lecturing a talk on: The Importance of Mathematics

Answer by Chandrasekhar for (Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2012-07-08T15:17:50Z

Here are some videos on Stephen Smale

Answer by Chandrasekhar for (Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2012-07-08T15:25:07Z

Michael Atiyah Beauty in Mathematics

Answer by Emilio Pisanty for (Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2012-07-08T17:07:21Z

While he's not exactly a mathematician, there is on Youtube a wealth of Richard Feynman lectures and interviews. My personal favourite is part of the "The Character of Physical Law" Messenger Lectures at Cornell, titled the distinction of past and future. (Though, really, all the Messenger lectures are amazing.)

Answer by Alex R. for (Preferably rare) Audio/Video recordings of famous mathematicians?

2012-07-08T18:57:05Z

Here is a long video about Richard Courant. Apparently he was one of the first people to own a video camera so there is some really old footage of some of the fathers of modern mathematics. If you scroll to 33:00, you will find footage of David Hilbert shoveling snow!