Memories of David Fowler

I first met David when I came to Warwick as a Visiting Lecturer in the academic year 1968-69. He was one of the lively, engaged, and engaging members of the Mathematics Institute at that time, but our areas of mathematical interest were sufficiently dissimilar that we did not get to know each other well. It was many years later, in the late 80s, when David sent me copies of his reprints that I realized that my former colleague had also become a historian. And here he was, questioning much of what was central to our picture of the history of Greek mathematics!

It was not until the 90s that we met again, and by then what David called his visitor had made its appearance in his life. Not sure what to say I avoided the topic but David faced it with absolute forthrightness and brought it up almost immediately we met. He briefly explained its principal effects and was evidently more concerned about how seeing these might affect me than about how the condition was affecting him.

The conference that David organized at Les Treilles was a high point in my scholarly travels. It was, after all, the only conference I have ever been at where Yo Yo Mah, who was staying there as a guest of the Schlumberger Foundation, asked not only once but on two occasions if we would like to have him give a concert for us. David had, forever after, the reputation of a man who delivered the goods.

Another memorable contact with David was at a conference in Delphi in 1996. My wife, Tasoula, David, and I went for a long walk to a local museum above the town. When we left I automatically started back on the same path we had taken up there. But David would have none of it. Oh, he said, I never go back the same way I came. This resolve to experience what is new and to live life fully remains with me as an enduring memory of David.

Len Berggren