Kurt Godel

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Kurt Gödel, 1906 — 1978, was a mathematician specialized in logic.

Born in Austria, he made his first important discoveries there, then, in 1940, went to USA where he spent the remainder of his life. Click here to see his biography.

P. M.

(alphacode : godel ; numcode : 174)

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Sisters of Wisdom

During the so-called French "Exodus" in June 1940.

(From archive movies)

P. M.

Gi.

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Gi. is the seventh boy of the list that master recited daily to check our presences in my first year at primary school.

This was during school-year 1948-1949. The list always remained in my memory as present as the alphabet. This didn't occur for lists of subsequent classes.

P. M.

(alphacode : [not public] ; numcode : 448)

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Vince Gill

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Vincent Grant "Vince" Gill, born in 1957, is a US neotraditional country singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist (wikipedia).

Ten of his songs are retained in the Christmas part of the Soundamerica website (Do You Hear What I Hear, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, ...)

P. M.

(alphacode : gillvince ; numcode : 284)

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Mickey Gilley

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Mickey Leroy Gilley, born in 1936, is a US country music singer.

One can read in his Wikipedia biography that he is the cousin of the famous Jerry Lee Lewis and that the two children « grew up close by each other ».

M. Gilley's voice is of clear male timber. He received many awards of the US Academy of Country Music

P. M.

(alphacode : gilleymickey ; numcode : 286)

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Gauss

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Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss, 1777 — 1855, was a mathematician of German culture.

Several important mathematical concepts are attached to his name, mainly the bell shaped  curve which is of central use in statistics and probabilities.

Less known are the Gauss integers  which are complex numbers of the form p + iq where p and q are rational integers. The set of Gauss integers has good properties and in particular the factoriality. Curiously, the number 2 which is prime in the set of rational integers is no longer so in the set of Gauss integers since one can write 2 = (1+i)(1-i) where the two factors are non-invertible in the set of Gauss integers.

P. M.

(alphacode : gauss ; numcode : 028)

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Chain of events - 2/2

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Back to the chains of events that led me to the project of entering dominican order in autumn 1960.

The second major event.

From the sink to my bed

It happened on an ordinary evening of one of my last school years in high school. I cannot say exactly which year. I was in "second" or in "first" but I was certainly not in "terminal".

This was the time when I secretly hoped that everybody had forgotten this etiquette of little-boy-who-will-enter-the-seminar; I avoided carefully to speak of it since I rather dreamed to do sciences, a matter where my results were good.

Just before going to bed, I am washing my hands in the sink of the kitchen (in the corner of the room, behind ++453++ on the photo below). My mother, in my back, says she did a visit to ++479++, the chaplain in high school. She says they talked about the future of her boys. When they spoke about me, she says that her words were exactly the following (I quote according to my memory) : "It would seem that his project is to enter the seminar" and she insists on "it would seem".

What my mother says has the effect on me of a very nasty shock.

Without saying any word, I finish washing my hands and go directly to my bed in the room where my two brothers and me sleep every night. While I am in the sheets, mother, certainly surprised by my silence, comes near my bed and asks, with some anxiety where one can guess dissatisfaction, whether I would have preferred that she did not speak of the seminar to the chaplain. I answer shortly "no" and, knocked, my mind does not find another thing to say.

During the days that follow, there is a course of religious instruction which takes place, I remember it well, in the room where we had our courses when I was in "third". I am intentionally late, willing to avoid a direct contact with the chaplain. The course is already running in front of a little group - we are never numerous if the subject is not catchy. I guess what is to happen and I have a stage fright. What I dreaded happens; the chaplain interrupts his speech and says to me that he wants to talk to me after the course.

So, after the course we talk, walking under the long glass roof which runs all around the immense and desert playground. "I was happy to learn that ..." I think he did not finished his sentence.

This first talk contained generalities. The chaplain says that becoming a priest brings great joys but also great sufferings. He asks me what kind of job I foresee. I'm completely taken by surprise. I answer the first thing passing through my head : "Like you, chaplain in a high school." But he replies quickly that his case is particular. In fact, I regretted immediately having said that. This is not at all my wish.

This is certainly on this evening that it was decided not to change anything in my situation before the second A-level.

And at no moment did come to my mind the idea to decide something else than to leave running this kind of machine which was triggered without my opinion. Because in fact, it is a matter of vocation, not of my opinion. "Vocation" that is to say "call by a high spiritual authority".

This is the answer to the question "Why didn't I strongly reacted explaining all around that this is an error, that I changed my mind, that I want to become an engineer and marry a girl ???"

A 500 pages book would probably be needed describing carefully the part of the society which was strongly impregnated by catholicism at that epoch. It would be necessary to describe the spirit - mystic and sentimental at the same time - which surrounded the word "vocation" and which was manifested by the seriousness and even fear that people had when they speak of a boy who will "become priest" or "enter the seminar".

And it would be necessary to speak about me, in the end of adolescence, enough informed of vilenesses of earth. The official teaching in high school did not have any word about the why of world and life. History courses are only description of events without ideological content. Literature shows many authors through their works but never presents them as masters of thoughts.

And for me, Catholicism always obviously remained the only society that reasonably works for the salvation - the difficult salvation - of mankind. Other religions ? I don't see the seriousness of christanism in notchristian religions. And protestantism is certainly the result of a misunderstanding which a bit of good will would certainly dissipate.

And what I hear, through the words of my mother on this evening, is : "Earth is full of miseries, sufferings and contemptible behaviours; your duty is to go and participate, in the structures of Catholicism, to its action of spiritual elevation, even if you would prefer to do something else." One probably would vainly look for a word or a gesture which explicitely made me understand this; however this is what I understood on that evening, in a fraction of a second.

A remark must however be added. The lines which precede are the echo of the rational plan and one can think from them that I see myself like a person who has a thing to do; however, the 500 pages book should certainly highlight it, I am rather inhabited by feeling that I must be, that I must become a character; this is my mission. And this explains my passivity. I "will let them equip myself".

Other essential notice, my religion is not at all nourished by images which Catholicism uses; I do not have the least phantasm on Jesus, the Virgin or the saints. My prayers are addressed to a remote God whom I think to honour the best by concentrating me on the meaning of each word that I pronounce. The idea that, for me, the project to enter the orders would have nevertheless the attraction to experiment some intimacy with an interior image is completely false.

P. M.

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Chain of events - 1/2

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Back to the chains of events that led me to the project of entering dominican order in autumn 1960.

It begins in the kindergarten.

1 Sisters of Wisdom

The Sisters of Wisdom were, I think, less than ten in the convent located on the parish. Each sister, normally, went after a few years and was replaced by another one.

The Sisters I have seen had, all day long, clothes and head-dresses exactly like in the photograph below. Their body dresses were of a light enough gray and were sufficiently long to leave only appear their ankles. The width of their sleeves were very large on all the length of the sleeves, down to the wrist. They had a huge rosary hanged to their belts; the grains were black, polished, and bigger than beans. They had all, also, permanently, a crucifix on the breast, exactly like on the photograph.


People could often see one or several of them walking without slowness in the streets of the neighborhood. In winter, they had a black pleated cape with a large pleated hood which covered them completely.

In the middle of their convent, they had their own chapel but a few of them were always present in the church of the parish at sunday mass and all other ceremonies. I can say it since, my family was assiduous too to all what happened in parish church.

The Sisters of Wisdom had the responsibility of the parish kindergarten and girls primary school. I spent the major part of my time at kindergarten in ++436++'s classroom. In fact, this sister was the only one with whom I had relations. At last, she showed special affection to me. The playlet where I said "On the contrary, it is very fine !" (see below) was organized by her. I continued to see her at catechism lessons after I leaved the kindergarten. She had the responsibility of first year catechism for boys in the parish. Lessons took place in one of the parish rooms. After that, ++436++ went elsewhere.

2 Kindergarten

I cannot say exactly howmany years I spent in the kindegarten before 1947 summer. The kindergarten is animated by two sister of wisdom nuns : ++435++ who has the age of a grand-mother and ++436++ who has the age of a mother. Despite its name, the kindergarten is a true first level primary school.

Religion is always present, centered on Gospel but not only. I remember that ++436++ explained that in the old days there was, in God's world, an important angel whose job was to carry the light. And I imagine that this world, with clouds and no earth below (certainly because of religious pictures) was dark because it needed some light. And ++436++ explains that the angel was too proud and became the first devil by cutting himself from God. In my mind of little boy, I don't doubt at all about the truth of this story.

I left the kindergarten to enter primary school in October 1948.

3 The playlet

This is the major event. It's a little fete which takes place in a classroom of the catholic primary school for girls of the parish. At (1) , ++437++ is in an arm chair. It is his birthday At (2) it's me and the crosses represent boys. I am not sure of it but I think that the palylet was played only by boys. The playlet consists in saying what jobs we will have in the future. Each boy expresses his project (not real, the dialogs are already learned) but I keep silent and don't want to express my future. A boy must say " It is so bad ? " (the tune is that of a question) and he says it. I must answer " On the contrary, it is very fine ! " and I say it. And finally I explain that I shall be priest.

P. M.

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Happy Days

Mauprévoir, near the apse of the church.

I wear a necktie found in the remainders of mother's mother grocery. I am between my sister and my brother J. I'm not sure of who are other children. The one with sister's hand on shoulder is probably brother B.

P. M.

Claude Gasquet

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Claude Gasquet died in 1991. He was master of conferences at the French university Grenoble I.

Claude Gasquet was co-author of a book in french entitled Analyse de Fourier et applications, a 350 pages book for engineer students which deals with mathematical aspects of signal treatment. I have in my little scientific library the 1995 version of the book : Masson, ISBN 2-225-82018-X.

P. M.

(alphacode : gasquet ; numcode : 406)

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Garth Brooks

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Garth Brooks, born in 1962, is a US country music singer.

From his biography: « His body of work propelled country music as a genre to the front pages of newspapers worldwide and the covers of magazines. »

P. M.

(alphacode : garthbrooks ; numcode : 320)

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Theodore Gamelin

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Theodore W. Gamelin is a US teacher and researcher in mathematics.

I own a copy of a book he wrote : Complex Analysis. This is a treatise which can be used by a student « with some familiarity with complex numbers from high school. »

P. M.

(alphacode : gamelin ; numcode : 460)

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Summer 1960

This snapshot was taken at Fouras, on the French Atlantic coast.

Me, at Fouras, Summer 1960

My parents have rented a small holiday house. This is the first time they do that. I joined mother and my two brothers after the travel in Picardie. I'm not sure of it but I think that my sister wasn't there.

P. M.

Evariste Galois

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Évariste Galois, 1811 — 1832, was a French mathematician.

He had time to solve an important problem before dying in a duel, aged of twenty years and half.

History of mathematics keeps his name among the greatest ones. One can find a sketch of his short life in the Mac Tutor collection.

P. M.

(alphacode : galois ; numcode : 370)

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Visitor

A visitor in my kitchen.

P. M.

The Portrait

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A civil servant must not apply robotically the rules of law without knowing something about the society. The one who has income from taxes must know the events of the present and past times of people who pay these taxes. The civil servant must know something about the geographical and economical description of the space where live those who pay taxes.

The very minimum, when the tax receiver receives a banknote, is to have some knowledge about the person whose portrait is on the banknote.

P. M.

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Jacques Gabay

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Jacques Gabay is a French editor.

His enterprise is specialized in reedition of great scientific historical texts in French.

P. M.

(alphacode : gabayjacques ; numcode : 387)

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August 2010

Snapshot : 2010 August 7th.

I am in my home. The house was built in 1981. I live here since that time.

P. M.

Angers, France, 44 rue Rabelais

1960. In these buildings was the dominican convent. The first photo could not have been taken at that time since the blind wall of 3 meters ran all along the domain. Instead of a park for cars, there was a large garden for vegetables in the whole area around the chapel.




Only the chapel remains. The black X marks the place where was the body of the convent. But the building I've known is completely destroyed and replaced by a new one. The building with a blue X didn't exist.

P. M.

Guido Fubini

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Guido Fubini, 1879 — 1943, was an Italian mathematician.

A well known theorem of integration bears his name.

At the end of his life, G. Fubini, as a jew, had to leave Italy because of fascism. He spent the end of his life in the USA.

P. M.

(alphacode : fubini ; numcode : 038)

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Tancarville bridge

July 1960. With the Compagnons du Masque on the Tancarville bridge over the Seine river.

Our travel leads us to the French Cote d'Opale, along the Channel, where we stayed two weeks. I can't say whether the photo was taken before or after the stay.



P. M.

Opininon

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I was surprised by reading these lines in Studies in the Psychology of Sex by Havelock Ellis (downloaded from Project Gutenberg); underlined by me :

Traditional morality, religion, and established convention combine to promote not only the extreme of rigid abstinence but also that of reckless license. They preach and idealize the one extreme; they drive those who cannot accept it to adopt the opposite extreme. In the great ages of religion it even happens that the severity of the rule of abstinence is more or less deliberately tempered by the permission for occasional outbursts of license. We thus have the orgy, which flourished in medieval days and is, indeed, in its largest sense, a universal manifestation, having a function to fulfil in every orderly and laborious civilization, built up on natural energies that are bound by more or less inevitable restraints.

The consideration of the orgy, it may be said, lifts us beyond the merely sexual sphere, into a higher and wider region which belongs to religion. The Greek orgeia referred originally to ritual things done with a religious purpose, though later, when dances of Bacchanals and the like lost their sacred and inspiring character, the idea was fostered by Christianity that such things were immoral. Yet Christianity was itself in its origin an orgy of the higher spiritual activities released from the uncongenial servitude of classic civilization, a great festival of the poor and the humble, of the slave and the sinner. And when, with the necessity for orderly social organization, Christianity had ceased to be this it still recognized, as Paganism had done, the need for an occasional orgy.

An opinion that must certainly be known—without omitting any part of the statement.

P. M.

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Companions of Mask

This photo was taken in the beginning of summer 1960. We are all seminarists, six philosophers and three theologians. We are in the bottom of the large seminary garden. We prepare the travel to Picardie. The photo will be used as advertisement.

I am the guitarist. Of course, when playing guitar I have no gloves.

P. M.

1950

May or June 1950. Poitiers. Parish of Sainte Therese. Solemn communion of my sister (we are catholic).







P. M.

Persons

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Maurice Fréchet, 1878 — 1973, was a French mathematician.

One encounters his name in topology and functional analysis where one uses Fréchet spaces.

P. M.

(alphacode : frechet ; numcode : 040)

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Russ Freeman, born in 1960, is a US « smooth jazz artist of multiple genres ».

Russ Freeman (photo from wikipedia)

P. M.

(alphacode : freemanruss ; numcode : 290)

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Klaus Fritzche is a contemporary mathematician.

I own a copy of this book.

P. M.

(alphacode : fritzsche ; numcode : 374)

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F. is the sixth boy of the list that master recited daily to check our presences in my first year at primary school.

This was during school-year 1948-1949. The list always remained in my memory as present as the alphabet. This didn't occur for lists of subsequent classes.

F. had an older brother who was in the same primary school and, during my third and last schoolyear in this school, F.'s brother and me — and likely also F. himself — were in the same classroom; F.'s brother was in the great division.

In general, I knew almost nothing of my schoolmates in primary school. But I knew that F.'s father was an accountant and that his home was a great old one not far from the school.

P. M.

(alphacode : [not public] ; numcode : 447)

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Words again

The main problem of a philosopher is that he must tell things for which there are no words to people who don't want to hear them.

I said 'he' but it works also for female philosophers. And, as a matter of fact, philosophy explains why gender is of no impact in the question.

P. M.

Deliberate lying

A Fundamental remark. The only case when lying is allowed. And one must add that the teacher must not go before the facts are fully explained.

P. M.

Henri Fraysse

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Henri Fraysse is a contemporary teacher of mathematics.

H. Fraysse is joint author of a treatise of mathematics.

I own these four volumes. They cover the program of mathematics for students in the first two years at university.

P. M.

(alphacode : fraysse ; numcode : 152)

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