Life and Fate: In Search of van der Waerden

Bartel Leendert van der Waerden was a distinguished algebraist, physicist, statistician, historian, author, and above all one of the leading algebraic geometers of his time. He made major contributions to algebraic geometry, abstract algebra, quantum mechanics, and other fields. He liberally published on the history of mathematics. Among the many books, Van der Waerden wrote the 2-volume Moderne Algebra, one of the most influential and popular mathematical books ever written. It is therefore surprising that no monograph has been dedicated to his life and work.§B.L. van der Waerden is not an easy person to understand. In attempting to understand van der Waerden's life, Professor Soifer has assembled thousands of documents from numerous archives of Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States which revealed fascinating and often surprising new information about Van der Waerden. Soifer traces Van der Waerden s early years in the family of great Dutch public servants: the father was a universally beloved politician, member of the Dutch Parliament; his younger brothers became a senator and a judge. Van der Waerden spent the entire Nazi time in Germany as a professor at Leipzig. These tragic times provide such profound lessons of human nature that we have to learn from them as much as we possibly can. We encounter heroes and villains, but also a much more numerous group in between these two extremes. The life of one such person "in between" is the subject of this book.