Abstract
The main theme of this chapter is the boycott of Germany after World War I. The newly founded Conseil internationale de recherches excluded scientists from the Ax’s countries and barred them from conferences, and even discouraged contacts between their subjects and German/Austrian scientists. Brouwer took the internationalist position and tried to obstruct the policies of the Conseil wherever possible. This brought him into numerous conflicts, including one with the Utrecht professor A. Denjoy.
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Notes
- 1.
L’Histoire des Sciences et les Prétentions de la Science Allemande, Revue des Deux-Mondes, 1915. Cf. Picard (1922).
- 2.
See Tuchman (1962).
- 3.
- 4.
Klein, for example, had not seen the text and was under the impression that he supported a ‘protest against foreign lies’. Cf. Schroeder-Gudehus (1966), p. 76.
- 5.
- 6.
Painlevé (1863–1933) had a double career as a mathematician and a politician. In 1910 he was elected as a deputy for the 5th ‘Arondissement’, and in 1916 he was re-elected. He was minister of education (Ministre de l’Instruction et de Invention intéressant la Défense National) from 1915–1916, minister of war (1917) and in 1917 he became prime minister. He was president of the Chamber of Deputies in 1924 and in 1925 he again was prime minister. In 1925 he was, for an interim period, minister of finance, followed by a longer period as minister of war (1925 to 1929) and finally he served as minister of aviation (1930–1933). He was, in the meantime, incredibly active in innumerable projects, for example, at the request of the Chinese Government, he reorganised the Chinese railway system (1920). Where Painlevé was, so to speak, politically predestined to fight German influence, Picard had suffered a personal loss during the war: his son fell at the front.
- 7.
C.R. 167 (1918), p. 800.
- 8.
One can find some records of the post-war scientific organisation in Ens. Math. 20 (1918) and 21 (1920).
- 9.
Ac. Royale de Belgique, Bulletin de la classe des sciences, 1919, p. 63.
- 10.
Picard, cf. C.R. 21 October 1918, vol. 107, p. 570.
- 11.
Schroeder-Gudehus (1966), p. 107.
- 12.
Ibid.
- 13.
Basler Nachrichten, 17 August 1924.
- 14.
The reader is referred to Forman (1986) for more detailed information on the Nauheim Conference.
- 15.
The positive answer is usually taken for granted; even Brouwer saw fairly late that there was a problem. It was as late as 1919 that he explicitly asked himself if π had a decimal expansion.
- 16.
Weyl (1921).
- 17.
One would guess that Bernays’ views on Brouwer and Weyl were along the lines of his paper On Hilbert’s thoughts on the founding of mathematics, JDMV 1921.
- 18.
Bernstein (1919), Cantor’s set theory and finitism, JDMV 1919.
- 19.
Denjoy to Blumenthal, 4 October 1920.
- 20.
Cf. page 15 of an open letter of Brouwer to the Minister of Education, 27 September 1922.
- 21.
Denjoy to Brouwer, 14 October 1919.
- 22.
Brouwer to Denjoy, 17 October 1920.
- 23.
As he already had done at Brouwer’s request.
- 24.
Brouwer to Denjoy, 27 October 1920.
- 25.
Denjoy to Brouwer, 29 October 1920.
- 26.
Brouwer only resumed his habit of submitting papers to the Comptes Rendus in 1950.
- 27.
But not before making some copies.
- 28.
Brouwer to Went, 13 November 1921.
- 29.
Hk. de Vries.
- 30.
Strictly speaking this was not the case. Brouwer’s note was printed as a letter to the editor, but reproduced within the report of the meeting of 29 October 1921.
- 31.
Brouwer to Minister of Education, 27 September 1922.
- 32.
Brouwer to Minister, 12 February 1923.
- 33.
Symptomatisches zur Gefährdung der Niederländischen Staatshoheit.
- 34.
Brouwer to Mrs. Ehrenfest, 26 April 1922.
- 35.
Chévalier—1920, Officier—1935.
- 36.
Extract of the citation: Savant de très grande valeur. Envoyé comme professeur à l’université d’Utrecht, a, par le succès de son enseignement, rendé les plus grands services à la propagande Francaise. A été torpillé deux fois en rejoignant son poste …(2 October 1920).
- 37.
Brouwer to Schoenflies, 17 January 1921. Schoenflies was Rector in Frankfurt at the time.
- 38.
Brouwer to Schoenflies, 14 May 1921.
- 39.
Only a few of the attendance lists were included in Brouwer’s private files. There is no central registration of student attendance.
- 40.
Bijdragen tot de theorie der elementairoppervlakken (Contributions to the theory of elementary surfaces), 28 November 1917.
- 41.
The Nobel prize winner, not to be confused with his son of the same name.
- 42.
Journal for Philosophy.
- 43.
There were three kinds of professorships: the ordinary one, which was a full time job, the extra ordinary one, which was usually a part-time appointment for some specialism, and finally the special one, which usually was a small part-time affair with scant remuneration, paid by some society for the furthering of the interest in … These societies ranged from religious groups to para-psychologists.
- 44.
Meeting of Parliament, 25 May 1921.
- 45.
The Calvinist university at Amsterdam.
- 46.
The New Chronicle.
- 47.
Brouwer (1922b).
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van Dalen, D. (2013). Politics and Mathematics. In: L.E.J. Brouwer – Topologist, Intuitionist, Philosopher. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4616-2_9
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