Many autobiographies come to mind (Kovalevskaya, Wiener, Littlewood, ...). Let me mention four by Polish mathematicians: Hugo Steinhaus, Stan Ulam, Mark Kac and Kazimierz Kuratowski. I could write here a lot more about them but... first simply read them. All four had excellent penmanship, Steinhaus was very sharp as a writer in the strictly literary sense too, Ulam had deep scientific insights also outside mathematics (and his wife was assisting him in writing his biography); Kuratowski work was written under the communism, when he was serving Polish mathematics and science by leading the Polish academy and Mathematical Institute--thus his biography was too diplomatic (what Professor Kuratowski was telling me in person was a zillion times more interesting).
Wlod AA
- 4.8k
- 17
- 23