Only Number Fields

Abstract

The red-tiled roofs of Göttingen are ringed by gentle hills which are broken here and there by the rugged silhouette of an ancient watch tower. Much of the old wall still surrounds the inner town, and on Sunday afternoons the townspeople “walk the wall” — it is an hour’s walk. Outside the wall lie the yellow-brick buildings of the Georg August Universität, founded by the Elector of Hannover who was also George II of England. Inside, handsome half-timbered houses line crooked, narrow streets. Two thoroughfares, Prinzenstrasse and Weender Strasse, intersect at a point which the mathematicians call the origin of the coordinates in Göttingen. The center of the town, however, is the Rathaus, or town hall. On the wall of its Ratskeller there is a motto which states unequivocally: Away from Göttingen there is no life.