The Mathematical Center of the Universe (2021) | Hacker News Reader

The Mathematical Center of the Universe (2021)

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88 pointsjorgenveisdal11 comments

If you want a deep dive on Göttingen, Constance Reid's biography of Hilbert is great.

Fun fact: Hilbert was born in Königsberg, a port city on the Baltic with a famous set of 7 bridges, and as part of the WWII peace settlement between the allies, Russia got it. But not without some interest stipulations.

Königsberg is now Kaliningrad, in the Kaliningrad Oblast, a geographically separated province of Russia. In order for Russia to regain direct access to the Kalingrad port (Königsberg), Russia would have to invade either Lithuania or Poland. And if you look at the borders, it's pretty clear they were designed as a lock: a straight shot from the nearest point in Russia would go through Lithuania, then Poland, and Lithuania again.

https://www.amazon.com/Hilbert-Constance-Reid/dp/0387946748/

I think you've misremembered geography here - a straight line from "mainland" Russia to Kaliningrad cuts through Lithuania and Latvia, and to involve Poland here, you'd have to be drawing a line from Belarus. Additionally, when Kaliningrad was handed over to the Soviets, it was contiguous as part of the USSR. There was no "design" to make the Russians upset about it.

Map: https://imgur.com/a/xtBJAig

The 40mi piece of land between Kaliningrad and Belarus has its own name and Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suwa%C5%82ki_Gap

1992 Russia offered Kaliningrad to both Poland and Lithuania, but neither country was interested in a region with seriously underdeveloped economy and inhabited by Russians who wouldn’t feel either Polish or Lithuanian, nor would they speak the language.

> And if you look at the borders, it's pretty clear they were designed as a lock

Assuming you speak about Suwalki Corridor, those borders reflect pre-war borders of local counties. No mastermind planning to make it hard for Russia to make it from Belarus to Kaliningrad. In fact it was Russia who drove those lines in first place after WW2.

Only „problem” Russia would have to solve in eventual aggression is getting an army into Belarus. But they can just target the Baltics instead and strike from their own territory.

Interesting -- I haven't heard about this. Do you know where I can find out more about this offer?

I have spent some time in the summers of 1993-1995 in Lithuania near the border with Kaliningrad on the Curonian spit. I believe the Russian fleet was still based in Klaipeda in 1994.

> 1992 Russia offered Kaliningrad to both Poland and Lithuania, but neither country was interested in a region with seriously underdeveloped economy and inhabited by Russians who wouldn’t feel either Polish or Lithuanian, nor would they speak the language.

I can't speak for Poland, but based on what my Lithuanian ex told me a significant part of the motivation for the rejection might also have been that Lithuania didn't want to have to deal with a pro-Russian voting block derailing their newly won democracy

That would be a modern trojan horse, smart to refuse it. Even if it may have look tempting back then (wars have been fought for meaningless land grabs before), as we see now with Ukraine it would be just inviting worst kind of problems down the line

Forced migration was a part of the Soviet playbook for generations by then, so Poland and Lithuania (and I would guess most countries in the Soviet Union) were all too familiar with the tactic.

There was also a talk in 1920 about universal computation 16 years before Turing:

https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2020/12/where-did-combin...

Impressive research! I have an story that is related to this kind of history research and genealogy but not with math. My great-great-grandfather was born in Gornostaypol [1], before the XX century. He came to Argentina with some of his children and my grandfather. Beyond my family and Internet genealogy will be very difficult to get information (without going to Ukraine...) and who can remember him or something about my family in 2023 in a village with minimum population? The Google search is more complex also because his surname was "men".

So... a post appeared in July 13, 2022 talking about my great-great-grandfather from the memories of a women who was born in 1938 [2]. Those are amazing things such as searching a needle in a haystack. Randomness helps.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornostaipil

[2] https://jewua.org/gornostaypol/

What a great time to live and do maths in Göttingen.

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