Adventures of a Mathematician

S. M. Ulam (1909-1984) was born in Poland and was a key member of the now legendary Polish School of Mathematics. In the United States from 1935 on, he received many academic appointments and honors and authored many articles, essays, and mathematical books, including Analogies between Analogies (California, 1990). Daniel Hirsch is President of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, located in Los Angeles. William G. Mathews is Professor of Astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Francoise Ulam is a resident of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Jan Mycielski is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Colorado.

• Preface to the 1991 edition byWilliam G. Mathews and Daniel HirschPreface to the 1983 editionAcknowledgmentsA Note on S. M. Ulam's Mathematicsby Jan MycielskiProloguePART 1: Becoming a Mathematician in Poland1 . Childhood2. Student Years3. Travels AbroadPART II: A Working Mathematician in America4. Princeton Days5. Harvard Years6. Transition and Crisis7. The University of WisconsinPART III: Life among the Physicists8. Los Alamos9. Southern California10. Back at Los Alamos11. The "Super"12. The Death of Two PioneersPART IV: The Past Fifteen Years13. Government Science14. Professor Again15. Random ReflectionsPostscript to Adventuresby Fran9oise UlamBibliographyIndex

"Who invented the H‐bomb? Fermi? Oppenheimer? Teller? General Groves? No, it was a Polish mathematician named Stanislaw Ulam. To this day we don't know what came into Ulam's head because it's still top secret. The most he says about it in his autobiography is that it was an “iterative scheme” which modified a previous and unworkable plan of Teller's. Well—the “adventures” (even though they take place mostly under his hat) of a man who invented the H‐bomb are surely no less worth reading about than the adventures of the man who ordered the first atom bomb dropped on a city."