Atle Selberg

Two clippings and a postcard from August 1949 [NEW]

Here are two clippings and a postcard from August 1949.

The first clipping is from the Trondheim newspaper, Nidaros. It captures some of the atmosphere at Selberg's lecture on the elementary proof of the prime number theorem (on 8/22/49) at the Scandinavian Math Congress.

The second clipping is from a now defunct, rotogravure-type, Norwegian magazine called Aktuell. It highlights Atle Selberg as "today's name" in connection with Selberg's work with the primes. (An astute reader would notice that there was an error in the text, viz., the assertion that Selberg went to school in Langesund. He didn't. In particular, there is no mention of Gjovik, where Selberg went to high school and his father was the school's rektor. The handwriting in the left margin of copy #2 would appear to be that of a family member (his mother?), who noted the error and went on to say that "pappa would not be happy, those in Gjovik would notice".)

Since Selberg apparently needed to depart early from the Trondheim Congress, the group postcard that Ernst Jacobsthal organized was clearly a nice momento.

These clippings and a number of others from the same time period were found under a pile of papers on a shelf near Selberg's desk. Likewise for the postcard.