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Book Review: Iris Runge in a Letter to Lise Meitner (November 26, 1938) She Wrote: Bulletin of the Canadian Society for History and Phi- Losophy of Mathematics, No

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Book Review: Iris Runge in a Letter to Lise Meitner (November 26, 1938) She Wrote: Bulletin of the Canadian Society for History and Phi- Losophy of Mathematics, No Book Review: Iris Runge In a letter to Lise Meitner (November 26, 1938) she wrote: Bulletin of the Canadian Society for History and Phi- losophy of Mathematics, no. 50, May 2012, pp. 18{19. \A few days ago I read in the journal Na- ture that you have recently turned sixty, Iris Runge: A Life at the Crossroads of Mathemat- and I would therefore like to take this op- ics, Science, and Industry, by Renate Tobies, trans- portunity to wish you all the best and a be- lated by Valentine A. Pakis, foreword by Helmut Ne- lated happy birthday. Unfortunately, these unzert, Birkh¨auser,2012, xxii + 456 pp., ISBN 978- times are not exactly ripe for celebrations 3-0348-0229-1 and congratulations. Here we are forced to live under the weight of horror and shame. Iris Runge (1888-1966) had a privileged upbringing But the feeling of paralysis that has re- and education. She was the daughter of the G¨ottingen sulted from these circumstances should not applied mathematician Carl Runge and descendent, prevent me from expressing to you, in the on her mother's side, of the du Bois-Reymond family. most heartfelt of ways, how much I hope Max Planck was a godparent of one of her sisters and that you have found a space where you can Richard Courant married another. At 23 she pub- feel content and where you can enjoy many lished a joint article with Arnold Sommerfeld. For more years of fruitful activity. Indeed, work more than twenty years she worked as an industrial is the only thing that can keep one alive; it mathematician with Osram and Telefunken, compa- somehow maintains its value no matter how nies engaged in the manufacture of electronic tubes insane the world has become." and related products. Of course, at this time, Iris Runge did not make her Much of this book is devoted to a description of political views public. On the other hand, as an Iris Runge's career as an industrial mathematician, \Aryan" industrial researcher, even at a time when which was pioneering in several respects. Apart from industry was under firm state control and contribut- helping her colleagues with the mathematical aspects ing to the war effort, she was relatively immune from of their work and using classical mathematical meth- requirements of allegiance to the party in power. ods in studies of the design of incandescent lamps and With its concentration on the formative influences electronic vacuum tubes she did research in the use and her work as an industrial researcher, the present of graphical methods and was a leader in the use of book has relatively little information on the last 20 mathematical statistics for quality control. years of Iris Runge's life. In the postwar years, she The author has had access to several sources of let- returned to academe, and developed her interest in ters and documents written by or connected with Iris the history of science. She published a biography of Runge. These add appeal to the narrative, given that her father in 1949 and a German translation of What she lived in truly \interesting times". We learn that is Mathematics? by Courant and Robbins in 1962. she held social democratic views and was active polit- In this scholarly work, with its rich collection of ically in the years following World War I. She wrote footnotes, photographs and references, the author has to her mother in 1930 (p. 303) \that I differ from the taken great pains to document the various aspects majority of the middle class, despite my bourgeois in- of Iris Runge's life and career. The publishers have tellectual roots, by firmly embracing a revolutionary produced a very fine product with a price to match attitude" . The following year she wishes (p. 304) ($149.00 according to their web site). Readers with that the forces of democracy \would lure the youth institutional access to the Springer eBook Collection and the intellectuals away from Nationalism Socialism will be able to download an electronic version without toward a socialism worthy of the name" and recalled charge or purchase a printed-on-demand paperback Heinrich Heine's poem of 1844 \When I think of Ger- copy at USD 24.95 (US and Canada) many at night, My sleep is gone and killed outright". To learn more about this book, search at With the rise of fascism, she had to restrict her springer.com/books . political activity to charitable organizations but as she wrote in 1938 (p. 307) \it is no longer possible Martin Muldoon to conduct any social work without first obtaining a Nazi stamp of approval". Given the inexorable march of events, Iris Runge thought of leaving Germany, as many of her friends and colleagues had been forced to do. She became a close friend of the historian of science George Sarton and it appeared at one point as though this connections might secure her a position in the United States. But it was not to be..
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