The Formative Years of Abraham Wald and his Work in Geometry

Abstract

In the fall of 1927, a man of 25 called at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Vienna. Since he expressed a predilection for geometry he was referred to me. He introduced himself as Abraham Wald. In fluent German, but with an unmistakable Hungarian accent, Wald explained that he had carried on most of his studies at the elementary and secondary school levels at home, mainly under the direction of his older brother Martin, a capable electrical engineer in Cluj (Kolozsvár, Klausenburg). He had just arrived in Vienna in order to study mathematics at the university. Geometry had interested him ever since he was fourteen. More recently he had been reading Hilbert’s “Grundlagen der Geometrie” (Foundations of Geometry) and he saw possibilities for improving these foundations by omitting some postulates and weakening others. I suggested to Wald that he write up his results {5}¹ (one of his proofs was later incorporated into the seventh edition of Hilbert’s book) and at the same time recommended some additional reading.

References are listed in “The publications of Abraham Wald,” pp. 29–33 of this issue.