An emigrant scientist in Istanbul University: Richard Martin Edler von Mises (1883--1953)
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
zbMATH Open document ID: 1309.01020
DOI: 10.1484/J.ALMA.4.1006
author: Sevtap Kadıoğlu
author: Gaye Şahinbaş Erginöz
published in: Almagest
publication date: 2013-11-11T00:00:00Z
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A70
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A60
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 62-03
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 03-03
zbMATH DE Number: 6225637
zbMATH Keywords: Richard von Mises
zbMATH Keywords: emigration to Turkey
zbMATH Keywords: Turkish students
zbMATH Keywords: statistics
zbMATH Keywords: positivist philosophy
MaRDI profile type: Publication
full work available at URL: j.alma.4.1006
OpenAlex ID: W2296733239
title: An emigrant scientist in Istanbul University: Richard Martin Edler von Mises (1883--1953)
review text: In the first part of their article, the two Turkish authors quote secondary literature for Richard von Mises' (1883--1953) biography before his escape from the Nazis to Istanbul in 1933 and after his second emigration to the U.S. in 1939. Occasional mistakes occur in reading the literature, unreliable literature (Reisman, Vogt) is used as well. The second part provides some interesting unknown Turkish sources, in particular reference to Turkish translations of von Mises' work and lectures, including those by Kerim Erim (1894--1952) and Cahit Arf (1910--1997), the most well-known Turkish mathematicians of this time. The interpretation of von Mises' statistical and philosophical work does not go in any detail. Before adding some facsimiles and portraits in an appendix, the authors summarize their work in a conclusion from which is quoted the following: ``The mathematician Richard von Mises, a German-speaking emigrant who came to Turkey in the aftermath of the 1933 University Reformation, was one of the most noteworthy figures to leave his imprint in the Turkish history of science. As one of the most significant applied mathematicians of the 20th century, he had established applied mathematics as a university discipline, during the six years he lived in Turkey. Von Mises, renowned for his authoritarian attitude and honest personality, lectured and published while he was in Turkey and supervised doctoral theses as well. Those theses were the first doctoral studies presented at the Istanbul University, Faculty of Science, Department of Mathematics. In this regard, Richard von Mises contributed to the training of the first generation of Turkish scientists in the early Republican Era. Von Mises was known not only as an eminent mathematician but also as an interpreter of positivist philosophy, it was in Istanbul that he wrote his major work in positivist philosophy.''NEWLINENEWLINEMore details on von Mises' stay in Turkey can be found in the article [\textit{A. Eden} and \t…
reviewed by: Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 6225637