A Life in Mathematical Science Part I: Growing-Up, Student and Postdoc Years
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A Life in Mathematical Science Part I: Growing-Up, Student and Postdoc Years Nicholas Stephen Manton FRS ∗ Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge CB3 0WA, England. March 2017 { September 2018 Abstract This memoir has been prepared in response to the Royal Society's request for Fellows to write an autobiography. There is more here of a personal nature than the Royal Society needs, but also a review of my scientific work and recollections about some of the scientists I have met and worked with. ∗email: [email protected] 1 1 Introduction It is interesting to look back on one's life and career, recall some key memories, and try to assess the significance of one's contribution to science. My life has not been very eventful from the public's perspective. I'm little known outside a modest circle of theoretical physicists and some mathematicians, and have not appeared as a scientist on TV. I have hardly ever been interviewed by journalists, except once for Finnish radio when Stephen Hawking was unavailable. But I have had an interesting time in science, and most of my social life revolves around interactions with academic colleagues and graduate students. For over 30 years, family life has been with my wife Anneli Aitta and our son Ben. I am currently 65 and expect to retire in about two years. I would hope to be involved with research beyond retirement, and to keep writing articles and maybe another book. But I have had some health problems recently, so felt that it was a good time to start on this memoir. 2 My Father's Family and Background My father was born Franz Eduard Sigmund Manteuffel in Berlin on 22nd February 1921, only child of James Manteuffel and Elfriede Manteuffel (n´eeKaufmann). James was from Berlin and worked in clothes retailing. Elfriede was a talented pianist and moved from Neustadt, west of the Rhein in the Pfalz, to Berlin to study piano, later becoming a piano teacher. Both were Jewish, but probably non-practising. The family lived in Charlottenburg in the western part of Berlin, and my father had considerable freedom to roam the city on his scooter. He had some musical and scientific talent, learnt piano, and in his teens often went alone to the opera and concerts. Some of his heroes and heroines were the opera singing stars of the day, and especially the conductor Wilhelm Furtw¨angler,whose beat was very hard to follow. I don't think he had any involvement with the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He was also rather disdainful of the rituals of the orthodox Jews. By 1937 the situation for Jews was critical, with no career prospects for a teenager. My father managed to get an apprenticeship with the engineering firm of Fleck's in Siemensstadt, helped by his mother who persuaded the manager that without this training her son's prospects and perhaps life were threatened. In late 1938 and into 1939 he was forced to transfer to an apprenticeship in an entirely Jewish enterprise, and a letter from that time names him as Franz Israel Manteuffel. With his training in metal working (lathes etc.) he successfully applied for a permit to enter the UK. He also got official permission to leave Germany, which probably cost quite a lot, and in 1939 flew from Berlin to Croydon airport just south of London, the plane overshooting the runway and ending up in a hedge. But he was OK. He had some introductions in London arranged by those helping Jewish refugees, and by 1941 had got a job with a small motor car engineering firm, Boon and Porter. He also started evening studies at Kingston College, just outside London, and worked hard to speak and write good English, but always had a rather strong German accent. By 1943 he had passed some exams at Kingston, and received strong recommendation letters from both Kingston and Boon and Porter for university study. So he could enrol at Imperial College in South Kensington for a BA in engineering, which included both maths and physics. At one of the examinations in Exhibition Road, a bomb fell nearby and the students had to blow the dust off their scripts, but the exam continued. There was a lot of thermodynamics in 2 the course, and by the end, my father had become particularly qualified in heat engines. Heat engines mainly meant steam engines, but his later job was more concerned with petrol (aero-) engines. One of the lecturers he recalled was Gerald Whitrow, who taught at Imperial just after the war and wrote books on space and time. My father got a First class BA degree, and accepted a one-year postgraduate studentship for further study of engines in 1946-47. He also enjoyed rambling in the countryside around London. My father never saw his parents again. His mother wrote occasionally, and sent parcels including warm underwear { long pants { that he used. By 1943 contact was lost and both must have perished in a concentration camp, maybe Auschwitz. My father had an uncle, Onkel Richard, who escaped to Switzerland, and an aunt who I think got to Paraguay. I never met them but did meet Tante Helene, the wife of Onkel Richard, who lived in Basel. We met her while on holiday in Uberlingen¨ on the Bodensee in 1957, and later at her flat in Basel more than once. During the war and afterwards, my father spent summer holidays in Cambridge, a kind of house party for German refugees on Parkside overlooking Parker's Piece. He mentioned having read Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga in Sidney Sussex College garden during one of these holidays, but the main activity in Cambridge was preparation of a domestic performance of some opera, with piano accompaniment. He sang tenor parts. At a similar gathering in London, he met my mother Lily, who sang soprano. My father loved Cambridge and dreamt of studying there. He approached the sponsor of the houseparties { Mrs Birkill, wife of the Fellow and later Master of Peterhouse, John Burkill { to ask whether he could be considered for a place, but was told that while her husband supported her work on behalf of refugees, she couldn't interfere in matters of college admissions. After the war he got a job with the helicopter manufacturer Fairey, but decided he preferred the security of the Civil Service, and moved to the Royal Armaments Research and Development Establishment (RARDE) at Fort Halstead, in Knockholt, between Bromley and Sevenoaks in Kent. His recommendation letter from Fairey said that if all talented young engineers left man- ufacturing companies to work for the government then British industry couldn't survive. Over the years his work for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) became more administrative, overseeing procurement projects for the Armed Services. In 1948 he married Lily in a liberal synagogue in north-west London. At about this time he also applied for naturalisation, and changed his name to Manton. This was chosen from the telephone directory as a fairly rare surname starting with the same letters as Manteuffel. Occasionally people asked him if he was related to the famous von Manteuffels of German military distinction, but he wasn't. I am also asked from time to time if I am related to some famous British Mantons, like the 19th century gunmaker, or the biologist sisters Irene Manton FRS and Sidnie Manton FRS, but of course I'm not. He continued to perform in amateur opera companies, and once sang Don Jos´ein Bizet's Carmen. These performances were written up in the local press. He also started his own opera company, as the conductor. This later became the Philopera Circle, and was a major part of his life's work. There was piano accompaniment for a few years, but in 1956 the performance of Nicolai's The Merry Wives of Windsor was with a small student orchestra, the first of many times my father conducted an orchestra. He continued as (sole) director and conductor of the Philopera Circle for many years. His job for the MoD allowed time for much of his effort to go towards managing Philopera and the music-making. My father was keen on European holidays after the war, and his Civil Service job allowed 3-4 3 week breaks (6 weeks per year in total). Between 1948 and 1957 my father and mother travelled all over western Europe, including to Switzerland, where my mother got badly sunburnt once on the Rigi, to France, to the Netherlands and Austria. They also went to the Rhein valley in Germany, and to Bayreuth, discovering that Germany's economy recovered more quickly from the war than Britain's. So they enjoyed cream cakes, which were rationed in Britain at the time. They didn't report much remaining antisemitic feeling, except from just a few individuals, as the Germans had by then started to reject the Nazi aberration. My parents lived in London in a basement flat at 16 Abercorn Place, St John's Wood NW8, and this was my first home after I was born in 1952. 3 My Mother's Family and Background My mother came from a family of German-speaking Jewish merchants. She was born Lily Goldschmidt in K¨onigsberg, the capital of East Prussia, on 17th February 1926 and grew up there till she was 12. Most importantly for her, she and her family were British subjects. Her grandfather Moritz Goldschmidt was born in Danzig in the mid-19th century (family records include the names and some information about Moritz's parents) but he moved later to London with his German wife, and their son Sidney was born in London in May 1881 and thereby acquired British nationality.