Year of Award: 1973

Publication Information: The American Mathematical Monthly, vol. 79, 1972, pp. 479-495

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About the Author: (from The American Mathematical Monthly, vol. 79, (1972)) R.L. Wilder received his Ph.D. under R.L. Moore at the University of Texas. He held positions at Brown University, University of Texas, Ohio State University before settling at the University of Michigan for a long career up to his retirement. He is presently a Visiting Professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Professor Wilder has spent leaves and visits at the Institute for Advanced Study, the University of Southern California, Cal.Tech., the University of Colorado, U.C.L.A., and Florida State University.

He held a Guggenheim Fellowship, he received an Honorary Sc.D. from Bucknell University and another Honorary Sc.D. from Brown University. He was the Henry Russell Lecturer, and the University of Michigan, for one year, and he is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He served as President of the American Mathematical Society, 1955-56, and as President of the MAA, 1965-66.

Professor Wilder’s main research interests are topology, foundations of mathematics, and the cultural history of mathematics. He is the author of Lectures in Topology (ed. with W.L. Ayres, 1941), Topology of Manifolds (AMS Coll.Series, vol. 32, 1949, rev’d 1963), Introduction to the Foundations of Mathematics (Wiley, 1952, revised 1965), and Evolution of Mathematical Concepts (Wiley, 1968).