C. P. Snow

Said one mathematician to another: “The number of my taxicab was 1729 . . . rather a dull number.” Said the second: “No, Hardy! No . . . It is the smallest, number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.”This and many other anecdotes and insights bring to life the great Cambridge mathematician G. H. Hardy as remembered by his friend and pupil C. P. Snow. This is the second of two ATLANTIC excerpts from Lord Snow’s forthcoming book, VARIETY OF MEN.

Long before he began to walk “the corridors of power ” in Great Britain, the eminent scientist-novelist Lord Snow came to know many influential Britons. Lloyd George picked him out of a dining room crowd at Antibes because “I thought you had an interesting head.” It was the beginning of a long intimacy, here recounted in one of nine sketches and profiles to be published in the spring by Scribner’s under the title VARIETY OF MEN. Next month the ATLANTIC will print Lord Snow’s recollections of the great mathematician G. H. Hardy.

Ernest Rutherford, the famous nuclear physicist, was one of the brightest luminaries at Cambridge University when C. P. SNOWwas doing his graduate work there. He came within the radiance of the great man, and there were sparks on both sides from their early encounters. In mid-career Snow, now Sir Charles, turned away from science to embark on the novels which hare since made him famous.