Apart from mathematics…

Could you tell us in a few words about your main interests besides mathematics?

SINGER: I love to play tennis, and I try to do so 2-3 times a week. That refreshes me and I think that it has helped me work hard in mathematics all these years.

ATIYAH: Well, I do not have his energy! I like to walk in the hills, the Scottish hills - I have retired partly to Scotland. In Cambridge, where I was before, the highest hill was about this (gesture) big. Of course you have got even bigger ones in Norway. I spent a lot of my time outdoors and I like to plant trees, I like nature. I believe that if you do mathematics, you need a good relaxation which is not intellectual - being outside in the open air, climbing a mountain, working in your garden. But you actually do mathematics meanwhile. While you go for a long walk in the hills or you work in your garden - the ideas can still carry on. My wife complains, because when I walk she knows I am thinking of mathematics.

SINGER: I can assure you, tennis does not allow that!

Thank you very much on behalf of the Norwegian, the Danish, and the European Mathematical Societies!

The interviewers were Martin Raussen, Aalborg University, Denmark, and Christian Skau, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.

Back to start

HomeNews ArchiveCalendar      Editor: Anne Marie Astad  The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters  E-mail: dnva@online.no