ABSTRACT

J.S.: When did you fi rst feel attracted to mathematics? H.R.: It was really in high school that I began to be seriously interested in mathematics. I went to an independent day school in New York City called Trinity School. It’s on the Upper West Side-91st Street. When I went there, it was a very solid kind of place. Tuition wasn’t very high. It was children of doctors and lawyers, or clergymen, or businessmen, who lived in the area. It was founded in 1709 and is the oldest independent school in the United States in continuous operation. There’s a school that originated with the Dutch in New York that is somewhat older, but it suspended operation during the Revolution. Since I was there, Trinity has become very fashionable. It has a soccer fi eld on the roof of one of its buildings. It’s much bigger than it was then; it’s now a school “to kill for” among the affl uent New Yorkers who don’t have enough schools to satisfy them.