A Regret From the Past--Brown Univ.

Over the years I have had many friends say to me, "If I only had bought that condo in downtown Portland in XXXX (year), I would be rich today." Or, as those in financial-investing circles say, "If you had invested $10,000 in (you fill in the stock) in 1950, you would be worth $5 million today." But, that latter advice has to be tempered with the realization from 2008 that if you had invested $10,000 in General Motors in 1954, your money would be worth about $10,000 today. I don't pay much attention to those who say "If only...." I let their voice trail off into nothingness, even though I am intrigued as to why they hang on to their regrets so long.

Then I realized that I had been hanging on to a regret for many years, one that I hinted at in this essay, and which I would like to explain further here. On one level the regret ought to disappear like the fog under relentless heat. It simply has to do with my not being particularly aware of a promising academic route when I was 19 years-old. No one, really, blames a 19 year-old for not capitalizing on all potentially attractive avenues at a university. Indeed, I have often said that university education is lost on the students; if you are really smart you only realize what you missed when you are about 45. Thus, there is really little reason for regret for not pursuing a certain academic course.

The Heart's Reasons

But as the 17th century French mathematician Blaise Pascal said, in a different context, "The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing." He was referring to what Kierkegaard would call a few centuries later a "leap of faith," a willingness to bet your heart on the truth of a proposition (in this case, the truth of the Gospel) even though there was no rational "proof" of its truth. But I stand Pascal on his head today by saying that the heart has its reasons for regret that the mind can't really fathom. Just as we need to hear and credit the heart when it speaks of the longings of life, so we must hear it sing its solemn and even ululating cry of regret.

Regret is made more poignant when, upon looking backwards, you realize that your own fear and pride contributed to a missed opportunity. In my case it was a sort of fear of being shown that I knew nothing (why should that be a fear for a 19 year-old?), and the pride in thinking that since I had an Evangelical view of God, I had almost all the "truth" I needed. But in order to understand the regret, I need to tell you about a most unusual and phenomenal department at Brown Univ. in my undergraduate days (1970-74), a department which I think may have been without peer not only at that university but of almost any university with which I have been acquainted in my life. It was the world's only department of the History of Mathematics.

First, A Little History

When I arrived at College Hill in Providence, RI in mid-September 1970 (school began on the third Monday in Sept. in those days), I noticed a house next to the Rockefeller Library, on the corner of Prospect and George Streets, with the simple identification on it: "Wilbour Hall/Egyptology/History of Mathematics." I still remember feeling impressed simply by the name, and, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore. A Brown Univ. website tells us that Wilbour Hall was originally the Dorrance mansion, but was converted into a fraternity and, in 1949, began housing the fledgling Department of Egyptology. I need to quote the following story:

"The original plans for the Rockefeller Library included the razing of Wilbour Hall, but the plans were changed to accommodate Professor Otto Neugebauer, whose office was in the building and who had been quoted as saying, if asked to move his books once more, he would move them to Princeton. Wilbour Hall was saved, and it was later revealed that Neugebauer’s statement was only a well-placed rumor instigated by another resident of the building, Egyptologist Richard Parker."

Well, Neugebauer and Parker hadn't been there forever, and so a word should be said about how it was that Brown even got a department of the History of Mathematics. This article goes into it in more depth than I have time for here, but suffice it to say that when Otto Neugebauer (1899-1990), a young mathematician in Gottingen, became identified by the Nazis as "intolerable" (untragbar; Neugebauer was of Protestant descent but had liberal political leanings), he left Germany for the University of Copenhagen and then, when Hitler's troops were at the borders of Denmark, he came to the United States. By that time (early 1940), he had already established himself not only as a figure of some note in mathematics, but had learned Akkadian because of his desire to understand the mathematics of ancient Babylonia. The happy coincidence was that, in 1940, the dean of Brown's graduate school was a mathematician and Brown already had a superior collection of materials in the history of mathematics (thanks to Prof. R. C. Archibald), and the dean quickly made arrangements for Neugebauer not only to move to Brown but also to publish a new journal in mathematics which would review current developments in the field (Mathematical Reviews).

The Department Grows

Neugebauer wasted no time bringing a younger colleague on board, Abraham Sachs, who had his doctorate from Johns Hopkins in Assyriology and who loved working on ancient Babylonian astrological and mathematical texts and tablets. Sachs was, in 1940, at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, where he was working on the massive Chicago Assyrian Dictionary. When Sachs came to Brown he also was housed with Neugebauer in the mathematics department but because Sachs was an Assyriologist, the math department never felt comfortable promoting him beyond the amorphous rank of research assistant.

Then, as often is the case, a force from outside forced Brown's hand. In 1947 Johns Hopkins gave Sachs the call to join renowned archaeologist William Foxwell Albright at the Maryland school. Brown decided that they needed to keep Sachs and, with the advice of Neugebauer, President Henry M. Wriston formed the Department of the History of Mathematics in that year, offering Sachs a position in that newly-created department. By 1953 he had attained the rank of full professor. Wriston's foresight and instinctive sense of what made for a great university not only saved Sachs for Brown but probably kept Neugebauer there, too. Then, as a result of a bequest from the Wilbour family, whose eponymous ancestor Charles Edwin Wilbour (1833-1896) hailed from Little Compton RI, studied but didn't graduate from Brown but in later years became a prominent student of Egyptology, a chair in Egyptology was established. Interestingly, however, Wilbour's huge collection of Egyptian books/texts was donated in 1916 to the Brooklyn Museum. So, Brown got the endowed professorship with none of the books.

The Egyptology position was filled, also at Neugebauer's insistence, by Prof. Richard Parker, also from the Oriental Institute of Chicago. Then, for about 15 or so years, it was the three of them, working relentlessly to bring the ancient exact sciences to the cognizance of the "modern" university. With the addition of Latininst Gerald Toomer in the late 1960s and then, the crowning achievement of all, the appointment of David Pingree in 1971, a scholar of vast learning in languages including Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic as well as the typical classical and modern languages, the department was complete. Neugebauer allegedly retired in the early 1970s, but his presence was felt at the department in those days.

With this history, we are ready to understand my regret, in the next essay.

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