I enjoyed this introductory quotation and first paragraph from Ben H. Yandell's excellent "The Honors Class: Hilbert's Problems and their Solvers" (AK Peters, 2002) * ** "That I have been able to accomplish anything in mathematics is really due to the fact that I have always found it so difficult." --- David Hilbert My mathematical readers know how to read this book. They will read it the way they read mathematics books. If they don't understand something (a state they are used to), they will keep reading in the hope tha they will understand the next thing. They will skip sections that don't interest them. So this is to my nonmathematical readers. If you are reading for the story, keep reading if you don't understand something. Skip a bit if you want---the biographical narrative will pick up again. Pretend you are reading Moby Dick and you've come to another section on whaling.... Thane Plambeck 650 321 4884 office 650 323 4928 fax http://www.plambeck.org