New Look at Some Old Bearded Mathematicians
Thursday, April 8th, 2021
“Maxime Bôcher [pictured here], with his square beard and squarer shoes, was presiding. In the back of the room, with a different beard but equal dignity, William Fogg Osgood was counseling a student.”
—from George David Birkhoff and His Mathematical Work, by Marston Morse, Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, May 1946, page 357.
Here is a photograph of William Fogg Osgood’s beard, with William Fogg Osgood:
We have not managed to find a photograph of Maxime Bôcher’s shoes.
People occasionally misplace seemingly inconsequential things – gloves, trainers, scarfs etc etc. But perhaps the sociological implications of misplaced objects may not have received as much scholarly attention as they deserve? Bearing in mind that :
