Klein, Hurwitz, and the "Jewish question" in German academia
pp. 171-182
in: , A richer picture of mathematics, Berlin, Springer, 2018Abstract
Mathematicians love to tell stories about people they once knew or perhaps only heard about. If the story happens to sound believable, others are apt to repeat it, possibly embellishing on the original tale. Such mathematical folklore occasionally finds its way into print, and once it does, readers are apt to take such stories at face value, lending them additional credibility. Occasionally, though, alleged facts come under scrutiny, and established stories are exposed as fiction. Yet even when someone comes along with decisive evidence refuting an earlier account it can easily happen that the original story just refuses to die.