G H Hardy's schedule of lectures in the USA

The following schedule of G H Hardy's lectures in the United States was compiled by D G Rogers. The notes are also by D G Rogers.

Princeton University, first semester, 1928-29
Chapters in the theory of functions

New York City, AMS meeting, 28 December, 1928
6th Josiah Willard Gibbs Lecture
An introduction to number theory
Delivered in absence due to ill health by H W Brinkmann, Harvard
Published in Bulletin of AMS, 35 (1929), 778-818
Awarded Chauvenet Prize by MAA

Lehigh University, 11 January, 1929
Hilbert's mathematical logic

Ohio State University, 18 January, 1929
The theory of primes

University of Chicago, 21 January, 1929
The analytic theory of numbers

California Institute of Technology, 27 January-15 March, 1929
Lectures on the analytic theory of numbers

University of California at Los Angeles, 1 and 5 March, 1929
Titles?

University of California at Berkeley, 7-12 March, 1929
Hitchcock Lectures (subject?)

University of Iowa, 23 March, 1929
Hilbert's logic

New York City, meeting of AMS, 29 March, 1929
Modern work in the theory of ordinary trigonometric series

Columbia University, 17-18 April, 1929
Prime numbers

[Information extracted from Bulletin of the AMS, 35 (1929), 280; 425. Hardy's name also appears this year amongst those thanked for assisting the editorial staff with refereeing and advice.]

Harvard Tercentenary Conference of Arts and Sciences
31 August, 1936 (before AMS and MAA)
The Indian mathematician, Ramanujan
3 September, 1936
The mathematical work of Ramanujan

University of Cincinnati, November, 1936
Spoke in symposium

Harvard Mathematical Colloquium, 3 December, 1936
Some of Ramanujan's work in number theory

For comparison, itineraries of first two Visiting Lecturers of AMS:
Constantin Carathéodory (1928); and Hermann Weyl (1929).

Carathéodory was visiting Harvard from Munich for the first part of
1928.

University of Pennsylvania, 10-13 January, 1928

Ohio State University, 16-17 January, 1928

University of Iowa, 19-20 January, 1928

University of Chicago, 23-24 January, 1928

University of Michigan, 25-27 January, 1928

Adelbert College, 30-31 January, 1928

Cornell University, 1-2 February, 1928

Harvard University, until c. 1 June, 1928
Wiiliam Lowell Putnam Lecture, 21 March, 1928
Selected problems of the caluculus of variations

University of California at Berkeley, Summer Session, 1928
With G C Evans and H B Phillips; but not otherwise listed (the next year, Weyl was one of four lecturers at UCB, with three at UCLA; all listed in advance)

Weyl, like Hardy, was visiting Princeton University; although he returned to Zurich, it was this visit that later set him up for appointment at the IAS although he still vacillated over that appointment; the Bulletin of the AMS notes, "he will make an extended tour during the month of May, travelling slowly from Princeton westward to California" (35 (1929), p. 280). Many of his talks were on topics related to mathematical physics.

University of Iowa, December, 1928

University of Michigan, December, 1928

Columbia University, March, 1929

New York City, AMS Meeting, 30 March, 1929
Fourier series and almost periodic functions from the standpoint of groups

Harvard University, 29 April -3 May, 1929

University of Chicago, 7 May, 1929

University of Illinois, 8-10 May, 1929

Rice Institute, 20-22, May, 1929

California Institute of Technology, 31 May-3 June, 1929

Stanford University, 7-10 June, 1929

University of California at Berkeley
Summer Session, 1 July-10 August, 1929
Representations of groups, applications and representations of groups for quantum mechanics

[It is sometimes remarked that mathematics on the West Coast of the USA got off to a somewhat slow and undistinguished start, but it is interesting to note that Carathéodory, Hardy, and Weyl all made the pilgrimage to California.]

Also touring in the USA in 1929 were P A M Dirac, from Cambridge, and E A Milne, from Oxford. Veblen was to try to get Dirac to Princeton for a period similar to Hardy's visit, but with substantial remuneration from Princeton, in contrast to the funds Veblen secured from the International Education Board for his exchange with Hardy; but Dirac was unable to come until the academic year 1930-31.

Dirac lectured on quantum mechanics at the University of Wisconsin in April and May, 1929. He and Milne were two of the four lecturers giving courses at a symposium on theoretical physics at the University of Michigan, 24 June-16 August, 1929: Milne spoke on problems in astrophysics and vector and tensor methods in statics and dynamics; Dirac gave an introduction to quantum mechanics.

Last Updated August 2007