One question that I came across on social media (paraphrased here) was: How can you celebrate colleagues’ birthdays or attend conferences while the terrible war that began on October 7 — marked by senseless horror, death, and destruction in both Israel and Gaza — continues, and Israeli hostages remain in captivity?
Here are my thoughts. Some perspective can be drawn from two remarkable documents (in Hebrew) written by Edmund Landau in 1925, both related to the inauguration of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In one document, where he presented 23 problems in number theory, Landau wrote that engaging with mathematical problems can be a source of comfort in times of war. In another, he expressed the idea that mathematics has the potential to lower the barriers between people and nations.
Perhaps the most meaningful answer for me came from a friend (and much-admired colleague) whose wife had passed away. In response to my condolences, he said, “Thanks, Gil. The personal mourning is mixed with the public trauma.”
Indeed, since October 7, everything we do—our celebrations, our mourning, and even our everyday routines—has been intertwined with the ongoing trauma of this war.
___________
More details and further sources and links on Landau’s two 1925 documents can be found in this 2017 post. See also the first minutes of this videotaped lecture. On the issue of mathematics in times of war, Shakhar Smorodinsky recalled this 1977 note of welcome by Paul Turan to Journal of Graph Theory.
A 1931 postcard from Akitsugu Kawaguchi to Abraham Fraenkl
Click to enlarge. Source: from Yoram Moses‘s collection. I am thankful to Yoram for sharing it with me.
Professor Akitsugu Kawaguchi (born 1902) was the director of the newly founded department of mathematics at Hokkaido University in Sapporo. Abraham Fraenkel founded the logic group at HUJI (see this post) and also served as the university’s rector. Both Abraham Fraenkel and Akitsugu Kawaguchi had to cope with terrible wars in their lifetimes. For Fraenkel’s point of view, see here, here, and here (all in Hebrew).