jueves, 16 de diciembre de 2021

On Dirichlet's attitude toward teaching

"Looking back on my activity at the University of Berlin, I can give myself the attestation that during the twenty-seven years of my teaching there I never allowed myself to fail in the highest effort of which I was capable to facilitate your entrance to the glorious, unmeasurably growing, world of scholarship to which all my powers are dedicated..." --- P. G. L. Dirichlet (c. 1855)

It is with this quote that Robin Wilson's review of Uta C. Merzbach's "Dirichlet: a mathematical biography" ends. This review appeared on pages 84-86 of the December 2020 issue of The Mathematical Intelligencer.

I'll catch up with you later!