Making a career
pp. 193-229
in: , L. E. J. Brouwer – topologist, intuitionist, philosopher, Berlin, Springer, 2013Abstract
After his successes in topology, it was about time for Brouwer to find a position. There was no doubt that here was an exceptionally bright mathematician, but that was not quite enough for the board of the Amsterdam university. Korteweg started a campaign to get him a position as a lecturer or an extraordinary professor. As a first step he managed to get Brouwer accepted as a member of the Netherlands Royal Academy. From there it was not so difficult to get him a university position. In 1909 he was accepted as a private teacher, in 1912 as an extraordinary professor, 1913 full professor (Korteweg was so generous to exchange his chair with Brouwer's extraordinary one). Recognition was now coming his way—the Mathematische Annalen invited him to join the board of editors (an honor indeed!). In 1913 Brouwer offered his assistance to Schoenflies in the preparation of a new edition of his Bericht; this brought him into fruitless discussions with Schoenflies, who could not master the intricacies of modern topology.