Mystery Math Portraits by Alfred Eisenstaedt for Life = unpublished book

Time Magazine has already opened its archives, and now Time/Life and Google have an index to Life Magazine’s photographs. This is great news, because Life chronicled and portraited America in photographs; and no one better than the great photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt. He gave us “the kiss” and Marilyn Monroe.

Apparently, in 1962/3 mathematician/computer scientist Dr. John G. Kemeny was preparing a math book using Eisenstaedt’s portraits of famous scientists. There are over 30 in the archives, including a famous picture of Kurt Godel, a great shot of the wonderful Stanislaw Ulam, and some other facinating portraits.

But who are they?  Is that Eugene Wigner? The captions don’t say. I invite elucidation.

2 Responses to “Mystery Math Portraits by Alfred Eisenstaedt for Life = unpublished book”

  1. Carnival of Mathematics 47, where no, well… « JD2718 Says:

    [...] on the Chromatic Number of Lichtenstein. John Kemeny has photos of mathematicians … and more of the same … but is looking for their names. They come from Time/Life’s archives. Ξ at 360 found [...]

  2. stratosaur Says:

    That’s Claude Shannon from Bell Labs, below Stanislaw Ulam.

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