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The search for E.T. Bell : also known as John Taine / Constance Reid.

By: Reid, Constance.
Material type: materialTypeLabelBookSeries: MAA spectrum: Publisher: Washington DC : Mathematical Association of America, c1993Description: x, 372 p. : ill., ports ; 24 cm. + hbk.ISBN: 0883855089.Subject(s): Bell, Eric Temple, 1883-1960 | Mathematicians -- United States -- Biography | Authors, American -- 20th century -- BiographyDDC classification: 510.92
Contents:
The eloquence of facts -- A habit of independent work -- Imagination's other place -- The prime years -- The low road.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Copy number Status Barcode
General lending MTU Bishopstown Library Lending 510.92 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) 1 Available 00082995
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Eric Temple Bell (1883-1960) was a distinguished mathematician and a best selling popularizer of mathematics. His Men of Mathematics, still in print after almost sixty years, inspired scores of young readers to become mathematicians. Under the name of John Taine, he also published science fiction novels (among them The Time Stream, Before the Dawn, and The Crystal Horde) that served to broaden the subject matter of that genre during its early years.

In The Search for E. T. Bell, Constance Reid has given us a compelling account of this complicated, difficult man who never divulged to anyone, not even to his wife and son, the story of his early life and family background. Her book is thus more of a mystery than a traditional biography. It begins with the discovery of an unexpected inscription in an English churchyard and a series of cryptic notations in a boy's schoolbook. Then comes an inadvertent revelation, by Bell himself, in a respected mathematical journal. You will have to read the book to learn the rest.

Includes index.

The eloquence of facts -- A habit of independent work -- Imagination's other place -- The prime years -- The low road.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

  • Acknowledgments
  • 1 The eloquence of facts
  • 2 A habit of independent work
  • 3 Imagination+s other place
  • 4 The prime years
  • 5 The low road
  • Index

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Bell, best known today for his biographical sketches in Men of Mathematics (1937), was an enormously prolific writer who addressed himself to nonmathematicians wishing to know something of the discipline with such books as The Queen of the Sciences (1931), and to science fiction buffs who knew him under his pen name, John Taine. Given his reputation in these areas (and his reputation among more knowledgeable readers for carelessness, if not occasional deliberate distortion to make a better story), it may come as a surprise to modern readers that Bell wrote many serious mathematical papers, and that he was a person of influence in the research community of his day. Reid adds intrigue to the story by relating Bell's efforts to conceal aspects of his youth, even from his wife and children. His books are still popular reading, and this first and thorough biography will without doubt find an interested audience. All levels. W. Roberts; Macalester College