Category: Mathematics

Storygram: Amanda Gefter’s “The Man Who Tried to Redeem the World with Logic”

Amanda Gefter • September 20, 2016
PUBLISHED BY: Nautilus ON February 5, 2015
AAAS Kavli Award

Walter Pitts was used to being bullied. He’d been born into a tough family in Prohibition-era Detroit, where his father, a boiler-maker, had no trouble raising his fists to get his way. The neighborhood boys weren’t much better. One afternoon in 1935, they chased him through the streets until he ducked into the local library to hide. The library was familiar ground, where he had taught himself Greek, Latin, logic, and mathematics—better than home, where his father insisted he drop out of school and go to work. Outside, the world was messy. Inside, it all made sense. …

Read More