This book traces the history of the MIT Department of Mathematics—one of the most important mathematics departments in the world—through candid, in-depth, lively conversations with a select and diverse group of its senior members. The process reveals much about the motivation, path, and impact of research mathematicians in a society that owes so much to this little understood and often mystifying section of its intellectual fabric.

At a time when the mathematical experience touches and attracts more laypeople than ever, such a book contributes to our understanding and entertains through its personal approach.