German mathematicians in exile in Turkey ... - Bilkent University

German mathematicians in exile in Turkey 443
Faculty of Sciences of Istanbul University [Geiringer and Kosswig [21], Appendix B]. 34 And
the third paper [Geiringer [19], Appendix B] was a purely theoretical one on the probability
of arbitrarily linked events, which found its place in her widely discussed paper [Geiringer,
1944]. 35 These three papers paved the way for a number of others, enabling Geiringer to
pursue her research program fruitfully in the US. As a result, she was able to derive a system
of recurrence formulae that yield the distribution of genotypes in the nth generation if
their distribution in the previous generation and the “linkage distribution” are known and
show how the distribution in the nth generation can be computed from the 0th generation
using those formulae. The linkage distribution was directly related to the probability of
arbitrarily linked events, hence the importance of [Geiringer [19], Appendix B]. 36
Interestingly, Prager too became intrigued by the idea of applying mathematics to genetics
and co-authored a paper with the geneticist Alfred Heilbronn (Prager and Heilbronn [8],
Appendix A). 37 We have then every reason to believe that Geiringer’s and Prager’s interest
in this topic was kindled as a result of their interactions with their colleagues Heilbronn,
Kosswig, Caspari and Braun who were teaching at Istanbul University during the same
period.
It is also worth mentioning the contributions of von Mises, Prager, and Geiringer to the
Revue de la Faculté des Sciences l’Universite d’Istanbul, Nouvelle Serie, the journal of the
Faculty of Sciences of Istanbul University. This journal began its publication in 1935,
and its first editorial committee consisted of Prager, physicists Marcel Fouche and Fahir
Yenicßag˘, and Sßevket Aziz Kansu, a professor of anthropology. It had a multi-language policy
of publication and was divided into Series A and B in 1940, where the former published
articles exclusively in the fields of mathematics, physics and chemistry [ _ Icßen, 1982, 3–4]. The
34
Kosswig (1903–82) and Geiringer were colleagues in the Faculty of Sciences during the same
period. Kosswig studied at the University of Berlin and received his “Habilitation” at Münster
University in 1927. Before joining Istanbul University in 1936, he was a professor of genetics at
Braunschweig Technical University. He was appointed as the director of the Institute of Zoology at
Istanbul University in 1937 and taught there until 1955. He had about a hundred publications and
directed nine Ph.D. theses. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Istanbul University for his
contributions. Ishakog˘lu-Kadıog˘lu _ [1998, 263–269] contains valuable and detailed information
about his scholarly works and activities in Turkey. For a biographical sketch, see also the entry in
tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curt_Kosswig.
35
This is Geiringer’s most cited publication. According to the Web of Science, there were 137
references to it as of 30 November 2011, the next most cited papers are the 1948, 1949 and 1945
publications with 21, 20 and 15 citations respectively as of the same date, and they still get cited,
especially in papers in the theory of genetic algorithms.
36
Geiringer’s other papers on genetics include [Geiringer, 1945a, 1945b, 1948a, 1948b, 1949]. For a
full list, see [Binder, 1992].
37
At the time Heilbronn (1885–1961) was the director of the Institute of Pharmacobotany and
Genetics in the Faculty of Sciences. He had received his Ph.D. in the field of botany from the
University of Münster in 1921 and became the director of the Institute of Genetics there in 1923. He
joined University of Istanbul in 1933 and taught there until 1960. He is credited with starting the
modern instruction and research in genetics in Turkey. Like Kosswig, he too was very productive,
publishing about 25 articles and five books. He directed eleven doctoral theses. Heilbronn and
Kosswig also co-authored several articles on the principles of genetics. For a very informative
documentation of Heilbronn’s life and work, see [ _ Ishakog˘lu-Kadıog˘lu, 1998, 250–255]. See also
[Demiriz, 1982] for the role Heilbronn and Kosswig played in the development of genetics and
pharmacobotany in Turkey.