Karl Menger

Karl Menger was a faculty member in the Department of Mathematics at Illinois Tech from 1946 to 1971, and influenced many students, fellow faculty members, and friends during his lifetime. Regarded as one of the finest mathematicians of the twentieth century, he made significant contributions to the fields of dimension theory, probability, economics, ethics, geometry, and calculus. "Nicht etwa, daß bei größerer Verbreitung des Einblickes in die Methode der Mathematik notwendigerweise viel mehr Kluges gesagt würde als heute, aber es würde sicher viel weniger Unkluges gesagt." —Karl Menger [Not that, if one were to spread the insight into the methods of mathematics more widely, this would necessarily result in many more intelligent things being said than today, but certainly many fewer unintelligent things would be said.] 1902 Born in Vienna 1920–1924 Studied at the University of Vienna; Ph.D. in Mathematics 1925–1927 Docent at the University of Amsterdam 1927–1936 Professor of geometry at the University of Vienna 1930–1931 Visiting lecturer at Harvard University and The Rice Institute 1931–1937 Founder of the Ergebnisse eines Mathematischen Kolloquiums 1937–1946 Founder of Reports of a Mathematical Colloquium , 2nd series, and Notre Dame Mathematical Lectures 1946–1971 Professor of mathematics, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago 1951 Visiting lecturer at the Sorbonne, Paris 1961 Guest lecturer in several European universities 1964 Visiting professor, University of Arizona and Ford Institute, Vienna 1968 Visiting professor, Middle East Technical University, Ankara 1971 Professor emeritus in Chicago 1975 Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art First Class 1983 Doctorate of Humane Letters and Sciences, Illinois Institute of Technology 1985 Died in Highland Park near Chicago Karl Menger was one of the leading mathematicians of the twentieth century. Mario Bunge, in the review of a collection of Menger's papers, says: The author's publications span a half-century period and they cover an amazing variety of fields, from logic to set theory to geometry to analysis to the didactics of mathematics to economics to Gulliver's interest in mathematics... This selection should be of interest to foundational workers, mathematics teachers, philosophers, and all of those who suffer from nostalgia for the times when mathematicians, like philosophers, were interested in all conceptual problems. Karl Menger was born on January 13, 1902, in Vienna. His father was the famous Austrian economist Carl Menger (1840–1921) who was one of the founders of marginal utility theory. His mother Hermione Andermann, who was 30 years younger than her husband, was a noted novelist who was also interested in music. As a young man Karl explored his talents for literature. In fact, in 1920 Menger was in his last year at the Döblinger Gymnasium in Vienna where he was a classmate of Heinrich Schnitzler's whose father Arthur was a well-known dramatist (two other classmates were the future Nobel Laureates Wolfgang Pauli and Richard Kuhn ). Between the years 1920 and 1931 there are several entries concerning Menger in Arthur Schnitzler's diary. None of the remarks concerning Menger's writing are very favorable. In fact, from 1920 until 1923 Menger was working on a drama about the apocryphal Pope Joan. Schnitzler refers to Menger's writing as unsuccessful, not favorable , and remarks that Menger has no literary ambitions other than wanting to complete this one drama. Schnitzler, besides noting Menger's genius and talents (for mathematics and physics), refers to Menger as a person who is not quite normal , a strange fellow , a megalomaniac , and suicidal. Menger entered the University of Vienna in the fall of 1920 to study physics. However, when he heard Hans Hahn lecture on Neueres über den Kurvenbegriff (What's new concerning the concept of a curve) in March of 1921 his interests were redirected towards mathematics. In the aforementioned lecture Hahn poi