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The Volterra chronicles. The life and times of an extraordinary mathematician, 1860–1940. (English) Zbl 1123.01016

History of Mathematics (Providence) 31. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS); London: London Mathematical Society (ISBN 0-8218-3969-1/hbk). x, 310 p. (2007).
Judith Goodstein has written an extraordinary well-researched and readable biography of the Italian mathematician Vito Volterra. Volterra, who lived from 1860 to 1940, was one of the towering figures of Italian mathematics of all times. His name is intimately connected with the early history of functional analysis; in fact, he was aware of the meaning of a ‘functional’ around 1883 before even the name was coined (by Hadamard). He is famous for his research in integral equations as well as for one of the first non-trivial predator-prey models – the celebrated Lotka-Volterra model.
Besides his importance in mathematics it is the strong personality of Volterra which deserves credit. He lived long enough not only to see the world he was born in being destroyed in the first world war but also to see Hitler and Mussolini pushing the world again into chaos, while he himself standing openly against fascism and anti-semitism.
The author has researched the life of Volterra thoroughly and presents a view on Italian as well as European history and history of mathematics during the 80 years between 1860 an 1940. The book is written in a lively style while references to the literature are given in detail throughout the book in the Notes. The book also contains an interesting obituary by Edmund Whittaker which was published originally in 1941 and gives a nice overview of Volterra’s mathematical achievements.

MSC:

01A60 History of mathematics in the 20th century
01A70 Biographies, obituaries, personalia, bibliographies

Keywords:

Biography

Biographic References:

Volterra, Vito
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