Oscar Zariski was one of the founders of modern algebraic geometry

[galaxyLogic]

For whomever might be interested in anectodes about mathematicians' personal lives:

My girlfriend's family was related to https://planetmath.org/kallevaisala and she told me this story which was part of the family lore. The family and friends were having some kind of get-together celebration maybe a wedding or so and prof. Vaisala's wife had bought him a brand new suit to look good for the occasion.

During the party they were playing croquet in the garden and prof. Vaisala got really into the game, but had the realization that suit-pants may not be the best for playing croquet. He could have stuffed the end of his pant-legs into his socks but that didn't really work, maybe socks were too tight and pants too big. So, he found a pair of scissors somewhere, and cut his pant-legs short. His wife started crying. She didn't really appreciate the genius of mathematicians.

[parpfish]

Im always conflicted about stories like these.

All of the mathematicians I’ve known ARE weird - really into technicalities and finding loopholes.

But for some of them (particularly undergrad math majors)… I think the weirdness is a bit of an affectation that they adopt having heard so many stories about oddball geniuses. They fear that if they were able to behave and relate to normal people it proves that they lack the otherworldly genius they want to be know for.

Let’s also normalize genius being normal people

[mandibeet]

Thank you for sharing this story! The story brought a smile on my face. Needed it today.

[hprotagonist]

Reminds me of the story about Weiner, who forgot he moved.

Apparently a true story, but the version where he also didn’t recognize his daughter (waiting for him at his previous home to show him to the new one) was an embellishment; at his funeral, his daughter said “dad never forgot who his children were”.

[mandibeet]

I think such anecdotes and concepts reflect the complexity of human nature

[lo_zamoyski]

Historical footnote:

'What also surprised me in the biography was the striking difference between Jews in Italy and in Poland. [...] Leopold Infeld’s autobiography [...] describes the Jewish ghettos in Poland as being almost completely isolated from the general population. [...] She was utterly surprised when she first saw the Jewish quarter in Warsaw, remarking: “The Jews in side curls and kaftans made me feel that I was living in two different nations.'

I wonder if she was failing to distinguish between various kinds of Jews. Compare the majority of American Jews today, and the Hasidic Jews of Brooklyn, for example. This, too, was the case in Poland, home to the vast majority of the world's Jews at the time. On the one hand, there were a number of assimilated Jews and Poles of Jewish ancestry (like Tarski, Brzechwa Steinhaus, and so on). On the other, there were plenty of religious Jews of a more orthodox strain. And given that 1/3 of the population of Warsaw was Jewish, it would be difficult to imagine otherwise.

[YZF]

I would guess to some extent?

I am far from an expert but I don't think late 19th century or early 20th century Europe would be directly comparable to 21st century USA. It's an interesting topic and maybe some starting points are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_secularism https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/jewish-pop... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtetl

Part of my ancestry is European Jewish and I'm sure my grandparents and great grandparents would have stories to tell but I was never interested in this while they were still alive. Kind of funny how that works. They were not religious.

[surfingdino]

She was likely seeing Hasidic Jews, who are quite distinct in the way they live and dress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasidic_Judaism

[apples5000]

I talked to one of Zariski's students about this... He mention to me that the article said he studied ”real” algebraic geometry, which is a different subject —he studied “complex” algebraic geometry as well as algebraic geometry without a limiting adjective.

[rendall]

> On the day he and his fiancée Yole were getting married, with Yole already dressed in white and veiled and the rabbi standing by, the bridegroom was nowhere to be found. It turned out he was working on a mathematical problem. Luckily, Yole was neither angry nor surprised; she was amused. Ha! I need to tell this to my wife.

Fellas and ladies, get yourself a spouse who understands when you're late to your own wedding because you are inspired by your passions.

[jmclnx]

Nice little story, the bride was not upset. But a interesting read.

[waynecochran]

      I think it’s difficult for us today to fully grasp the hope that the Russian Revolution brought to the working people.

That hypotheses didn’t workout very well.

[ben_w]

Now I'm curious: most of us are familiar with what the USSR did wrong, were they better or worse than the Tsars before them?

[mensetmanusman]

This is the plot of flubber with Robin Williams…

[mpalmer]

I like the post, and I would upvote it if the title was more descriptive of the actual content instead of a clickbait-y "hook" that hints nothing about the topic.

I thought I'd be reading about an interesting neuroscience case (or whatever), but it's a review/short synopsis of a mathematician's biography. The wedding anecdote is just the last paragraph.

[thih9]

The story about the wedding is one short paragraph at the end - with almost no extra information and not referenced elsewhere in the article. Very anticlimactic.

> But the story in the book that I liked the most is this one: Zariski was, of course, very much obsessed with mathematics. On the day he and his fiancée Yole were getting married, with Yole already dressed in white and veiled and the rabbi standing by, the bridegroom was nowhere to be found. It turned out he was working on a mathematical problem. Luckily, Yole was neither angry nor surprised; she was amused. Ha! I need to tell this to my wife.

[simpaticoder]

Those who spend their time flying through imaginary worlds do well to "remember where the off switch is" to quote Ian Banks' "Excession". It's also helpful to characterize a person not just by their character, tenacity or energy, or age, but also a number between 0 and 1 that indicates how much of their time they've spent in the real world, vs in their happy fun space. Call it the "imagination factor". A bright, capable mind of 40 with an imagination factor of .75 may only have the cumulative real-world experience of a 10-year-old.

[lrobinovitch]

It's unclear to me what you're defining as real. Coal mining? Childcare? Community centers? Through hiking? Interesting theoretical realms can have enormous consequences in the physical/tangible world, as I'm sure you know :). Maybe it's more of a "presence factor" in relation to this story: a measure of how aware you are of the roles and responsibilities you have and how engaged with them you are.

[kovezd]

> A bright, capable mind of 40 with an imagination factor of .75 may only have the cumulative real-world experience of a 10-year-old.

While provocative, that argument does not take into account the development of the brain. Processing early experiences are far different from the ones when the brain is fully developed. This includes the storage of memories (knowledge).

[mpalmer]

You take a strange lesson from an anecdote about artificial super-intelligences. In the book, the AIs can spend time in a limitless virtual universe, better than reality.

Time spent in "infinite fun" (as they call it) has no value because it has no impact on what happens in the real world, hence the importance of remembering where the off-switch is. It's about having an effect on the world, not the world having an effect on you.

Someone who spends a lot of time (and in all likelihood is wired to spend a lot of time) thinking about their work is not wasting their time; they are preparing to have an effect on the world.

[delichon]

> Those who spend their time flying through imaginary worlds do well to "remember where the off switch is"

If this world is a simulation, and someone among us is the player-character, forgetting that there is an off switch is a feature for them that increases immersion by making any failure to suspend disbelief (which I as a probable NPC suffer from regulary) a moot issue. As long as we think that this is reality, its believability is subordinate to its survivability.

[mandibeet]

Overall I find the "imagination factor" as an useful tool for self-reflection and understanding others

[blendergeek]

Headline should be "Oscar Zariski - forgot about his own wedding" in accordance with HN headline guidelines.

[dang]

This seems to be one of those non-converging title sequences because no option satisfies everyone.

We eventually changed it to "Oscar Zariski was one of the founders of modern algebraic geometry", even though this omits the anecdote which the thread is mostly about. People won't miss that if they see the article's own title though.

[thih9]

Could you cite the guideline? I couldn't find it; I thought the idea is to use the original title where possible.

> Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.

[mandibeet]

These anecdotes not only humanize these brilliant minds but also offer a humorous and endearing look at the quirks that often accompany such intense intellectual focus.