8 - A Quaker mathematician

Summary

Richardson

A customer in a British bank would feel perturbed if greeted by a manager wearing jeans, a sweater and shoes which had clearly seen better days. In the same way, the man in the street feels unhappy when introduced to a mathematician who wears a three piece suit. A good mathematician, he feels, should be untidy, absentminded and odd. Since mathematicians are not only permitted but actively encouraged to be eccentric, it is not surprising that a substantial minority are a little peculiar. There are mathematicians who dress like Einstein, others who dress like priests of some Far Eastern religion and some who dress like garden gnomes. There are mathematicians who never open their mail, mathematicians who sleep all day and work during the night, mathematicians who eat yoghurt with a fork, mathematicians who only eat yoghurt, mathematicians who lecture in bare feet, and several who know the railway and long-distance coach timetables for the whole of the British Isles.

This diversity lies mainly on the surface. Most mathematicians share the same kind of mathematical values and pursue similar careers. Lewis Fry Richardson was different — and he was different because he was a Quaker who lived according to the Quaker rules of service and pacifism. He was born in 1881 in Newcastle into a middle class Quaker family.