Talk:Nathan Altshiller Court

Name?

Any clues as to what was his Polish name before he changed it? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 21:14, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

While we are at it, I have seen several sources which hyphenate Altshiller-Court (including from the 1920s, but especially notable is the use of the hyphenated form by Dover in reprinting Modern Geometry) but others that imply that Altshiller is a middle name and Court a last name. Is there any definitive way to settle this? –jacobolus (t) 02:23, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

There's a newspaper article from the Ardmore Daily Ardmoreite, 1919-03-27, p. 11:

Professor Changes Name in Becoming a Citizen   Norman, Okla. March 26.—Final citizenship papers were approved by District Judge Fletcher Swank here yesterday for Nathan Altshiller, assistant professor of mathematics in the University of Oklahoma. In becoming a citizen Altshiller changed his name to Nathan Altshiller Court. He was born in Russian Poland.

The name is presumably a spelling variant of Altschuler (Альтшуллер). –jacobolus (t) 02:58, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

@Piotrus: Birth name Natan Altszyller as recorded in European schools. - Altenmann >talk 05:06, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

That's a school in Belgium. What alphabet was used by Polish Jews in 19th century Warsaw? –jacobolus (t) 05:44, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Latin, Hebrew, Yddish? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:56, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

You forgot Russian :-) In the Belgian school the distinctly Polish spelling was used. A transliteration from Yiddish/Hebrew or Russian would have looked differently. - Altenmann >talk 15:52, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Family

The 2nd ref says "Dr. Court is survived by his wife, of Norman, and a son, Dr. Arnold Court." Englisch is not my native language, so I am puzzled what "of Norman" could mean? - Altenmann >talk 04:29, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Norman, Oklahoma is the town where he lived. –jacobolus (t) 05:42, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Einstein

The text David W. Levy contains plenty of personal info about court, including an amusing anecdote about comparing him with Einstein (in appearance). Now that you added a photo, it does make sense to me :-). Can you summarize more from this ref (my English is sloppy, otherwise I could have done this myself). - Altenmann >talk 07:21, 27 August 2023 (UTC)