- A solitary childhood or a period of isolation resulting from an illness is frequently noted in the early lives of scientists (DesCartes and Newton, for example). How did her own isolation and illness affect Julia Robinson’s development?
“I am not sure what the significance of this finding is. Obviously I had to amuse myself for long periods of time, but I didn’t do so with mathematics. What I learned during that year in bed was patience.”
Although Julia’s heart surgery in 1961 was followed by two other major surgeries in that decade, she was able to enjoy for the first time such activities as hiking and canoeing. Her favorite, however, was always bicycling, and she took her bicycle with her on almost every professional trip that she made. “One month after the [heart] operation I bought my first bicycle. It has been followed by half a dozen increasingly better bikes and many cycling trips in this country and in Holland. Raphael sometimes complains that while other men’s wives buy fur coats and diamond bracelets, his buys bicycles.”
- Julia showed some early ability and interest in mathematics and science, but she was not totally absorbed in mathematics.
“My friend, Virginia, with whom I went horseback riding once a week, was an art major, and, encouraged by her, I took an art course in which I learned something about perspective and among other things drew an impressively realistic baseball. I was a great baseball fan, keeping box scores at games and spending my allowance on the Sporting News. In spite of my complete lack of musical ability or appreciation, I had a huge crush on the Metropolitan Opera’s baritone, Lawrence Tibbett, who starred in several movies at that time. I learned from my father how to shoot both a rifle and a pistol. In retrospect, I see my high school years as very relaxed compared to those of young people today. There was no pressure to get into a ‘good’ college, and my parents were seemingly unconcerned by the fact that on occasion I was in an English class that was not college preparatory.”
“In junior high school Constance and I were given an IQ test. Constance did very well, but I, being a slow reader and unaccustomed to taking tests, did poorly; my IQ was recorded as 98, two points below normal. Even after we were in college, Constance, who took her courses lightly while devoting herself to the school paper, was being called into the dean’s office to find out why she wasn’t doing better while I was being called in to find out why I was able to perform above my ability.”
- When Julia was approached about becoming the president of the American Mathematical Society, she did not accept the nomination immediately. She studied the matter for several days.
A strong consideration in her deliberation was that a woman had never been President and that if she did not accept it might be a long time before a woman who was a natural candidate appeared. “Raphael thought I should decline and save my energy for [doing] mathematics. But as a woman and a mathematician I had no alternative but to accept. I have always tried to do everything I could to encourage talented women to become research mathematicians. I found my service as president of the Society taxing but very, very satisfying.”
- Julia was genuinely humble about all of her accomplishments.
According to Constance Reid, Julia’s sister and biographer, Julia actively resisted the idea of a biography. Then she read that the only excuse for writing one’s autobiography is to give credit where credit has not been given, and that seemed to her a reasonable justification, for there were people to whom she very much wanted to give credit. Under increasing pressure from the American Mathematical Society and various academies for biographical material, she finally yielded: “Constance, you do it.”
“I think our failures should be included along with our successes. During the 1950’s there was a lot of money available for mathematical research. A mathematician friend got me some work on hydrodynamics that was being done at Stanford. It was not my field, and I shouldn’t have taken it on, but I did. Although I worked very hard, I was able to prove absolutely nothing. When the year was up, I resigned without even turning in a report. I had nothing to report — a failure that still embarrasses me.”
“When any one of Hilbert’s problems is solved or even just some progress made toward a solution, everybody who has had any part in the work gets a great deal of attention. In 1976, for instance, I became the first woman mathematician to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences although there are other women mathematicians who in my opinion are more deserving of the honor.”
“I have written so incompletely and nontechnically about my more than twenty years of work on the Tenth Problem because Martin [Davis], who contributed as much as I to its ultimate solution, has published seveal excellent papers telling the whole story.”
Martin Davis writes, “A striking characteristic of Julia was her insistence on always being very sure to give appropriate credit to others. She and Yuri [Matijasevich] each refused to accept credit they felt inappropriate — such a refreshing change from all too familiar tales of quarrels over ownership of ideas.”
Last Updated February 7, 2022