埃里克·坦普尔·贝尔Eric Temple Bell

埃里克·坦普尔·贝尔的父母是Helen Jane Lindsay Lyall和James Bell。James是一名鱼类加工者和水果种植者，E T 贝尔在他的自传著作中没有提到这一事实。由于某种原因，他选择隐藏自己人生的第一部分，甚至对自己的儿子和妻子也隐瞒。贝尔是他父母两个儿子中较小的一个，长子是James Redward 贝尔。他还有一个妹妹Enid Lyall 贝尔。1884年，全家离开苏格兰前往美国，住在加利福尼亚州的圣何塞。1896年1月4日贝尔的父亲去世后，贝尔与母亲、妹妹和哥哥返回英国。从1898年起，贝尔就读于贝德福德现代学校，那里出色的数学教学使他对这门学科产生了终生的兴趣。特别是，他对数论的兴趣来自这一时期。他写道[21]：-

我对数学的兴趣始于两次学校奖励，一次是希腊语奖，另一次是物理实验室奖，两者都是用全小牛皮精美装订的。希腊语奖的奖品是詹姆斯·克拉克·麦克斯韦关于电学和磁学的经典著作，另一项奖品是荷马的《奥德赛》。我表兄获得了希腊语奖，我获得了另一项。他读了我的书，我试图读他的书，但失败了。对于一个只学到正整指数二项式定理的人来说，积分符号尤其令人困惑。当时微积分不是学校科目，所以我母亲花钱请人私下授课——已故的爱德华·曼·兰利——他是我遇到过的最好的老师。从他那里我明白了$\Large\frac{dy}{dx}\normalsize$和$\int y dx$的含义。其余的就相对容易了，我发现自己掌握了一把能打开上百扇门的钥匙。

兰利（1851-1933）从1878年到1918年在贝德福德现代学校任教。在这些年里，他写了许多数学教科书，并于1894年创办了Mathematical Gazette。1902年，贝尔——但不是他家里的其他人——回到了美国。他在自传中写道，他离开英国是为了——

……逃避被塞进伍尔维奇或印度文官系统。

他于1902年进入斯坦福大学，两年后以优异成绩获得数学学士学位。在接下来的三年里，他在旧金山的一所私立预科学校任教以维持生计。1906年4月18日，旧金山遭遇了一场大地震。地震之后，旧金山中部的大部分地区被大火摧毁。贝尔意识到他住的寄宿公寓即将被大火烧毁，为了保护他珍贵的书籍，他把它们埋在了花园里。他尤其埋下了他最珍爱的数论书，爱德华·卢卡斯的 Théorie des Nombres（1891年）。他的努力只取得了部分成功，因为他埋书不够深，无法避开大火的极端高温。在他的余生中，他一直保存着这些珍贵的书，它们仍然可读，但被大火严重烧焦。随后，他在西雅图的华盛顿大学攻读硕士学位，于1907年入学，并获得了丹尼奖学金。1908年春天，他获得了硕士学位，然后搬到圣何塞，在那里为了赚些钱，他写了自己的第一部科幻小说。从1909年到1911年，他在加利福尼亚州北部锡斯基尤县耶里卡镇的耶里卡高中任教。这所学校建于1893年，在贝尔离开五年后的1916年被大火摧毁。他于1912年在哥伦比亚大学获得博士学位，仅学习一年，学位论文为The Cyclotomic Quinary Quintic。在这项工作中，贝尔进一步发展了费迪南·艾森斯坦对卡尔·弗里德里希·高斯关于仅用直尺和圆规可构造正多边形的判定的推广。在哥伦比亚大学，他的博士工作由卡西乌斯·杰克逊·凯泽（1862-1947）指导。在他获得博士学位两年前，即1910年底，贝尔与杰西·莉莲·史密斯·布朗结婚，她是一位寡妇，他在耶里卡高中认识了她，她在那里教艺术和商业科目。他们有一个儿子，取名泰恩·贝尔，生于1917年9月27日。康斯坦斯·里德在[62]中写道，贝尔的妻子——

……被描述为给他“上浆”。对朋友们来说，他们几乎像一个人。因此尤其奇怪的是，他从未告诉她关于自己家庭背景或早年生活的细节。

他们的儿子泰恩[62]：

……小时候，他因为看到教堂尖顶上有一个十字架，就问他们为什么把加号放在上面，因而小有名气。

Taine没有子承父业去搞数学，而是成了一名医生。他的父亲非常不高兴，认为儿子没拿到博士学位是个失败者。

贝尔从1912年起在华盛顿大学教数学，最初被聘为讲师，但在该校任教的十四年间升到了教授。正是在华盛顿大学，贝尔赢得了美国顶尖数学家之一的声誉。他的大部分研究都在数论领域，那是他最深爱的数学分支。American Mathematical Society于1924年授予他马克希莫·博谢纪念奖，奖励他的论文Arithmetical paraphrases，该文已于1921年发表在美国数学会的Transactions上。1922年，贝尔的一名学生开始展现出非凡的才能，这名学生就是霍华得·帕西·罗伯特森。1922年本科毕业后，霍华得·帕西·罗伯特森开始攻读硕士学位，并选修了贝尔的力学课程。贝尔于1922年4月3日写信给他以前的学生哈罗德·霍特林，后者于1919年毕业于华盛顿大学（见[42]）：——

[霍华得·帕西·罗伯特森]上个月才19岁，他解决最困难的问题和理论就像子弹一样快。即使是约瑟夫·拉格朗日方程中复杂的问题设置也丝毫不困扰他……霍华得·帕西·罗伯特森是个难得的人才。

贝尔发现相对论特别令人兴奋，并开设了一门课程，霍华得·帕西·罗伯特森选修了这门课。贝尔向哈罗德·霍特林吐露，如果他没有把十五年的生命投入数论，他会很乐意从事相对论研究。他确实说服了霍华得·帕西·罗伯特森，说这是一个引人入胜的课题，并且在贝尔的鼓励下，他继续在这个及相关领域扬名立万。

1924年，贝尔被任命为美国数学会理事会成员。1926年他成为该学会的副主席。马克希莫·博谢奖的授予以及他日益增长的声誉，使贝尔收到了来自几所大学的教授职位邀请，包括密歇根大学、布林莫尔大学和哥伦比亚大学。贝尔既没有接受也没有拒绝这些邀请，而是试图让它们保持开放。1925年夏天，他在芝加哥大学讲授自己的研究，秋天则在哈佛讲学。芝加哥试图引诱他接受那里的教授职位，但1926年初，加州理工学院的实验物理学家Robert A Millikan获得大学理事会许可，尽一切可能吸引贝尔去加州理工。Millikan从1924年末开始就贝尔向伦纳德·尤金·迪克森、乔治·戴维·伯克霍夫和奥斯瓦尔德·维布伦征求意见，特别询问他是否达到国家科学院标准。伦纳德·尤金·迪克森对他评价很高，暗示贝尔会比他的同事Harry Bateman更早当选国家科学院，而乔治·戴维·伯克霍夫则不那么热情，写道：——

……在他的专业之外，他的工作并不总是高水平的。

在贝尔最初与密立根接触之后，他利用哥伦比亚大学的一份优厚聘书，从加州理工学院争取到了更好的条件。经过一个月的谈判，他接受了加州理工学院的聘书，尽管待遇低于哥伦比亚大学，但他更愿意接受[42]：-

……密立根邀请他前往加州理工学院，因为该研究所已在科学界获得了一定的声望，而且或许同样重要的是，它位于西海岸。

他于1926年被任命为加州理工学院数学教授，担任该职位直到疾病迫使他退休，那是在他去世前一年。伦纳德·尤金·迪克森关于贝尔将很快当选为国家科学院会士的预测被证明是正确的：他于1927年当选，比Bateman早三年。同样在1927年，贝尔受邀作美国数学会学术报告。他作了题为“代数算术”的报告。

大萧条使加州理工学院的生活变得艰难，正如各地一样。贝尔在1931年写信给奥斯瓦尔德·维布伦，解释他没有资金邀请他来访（例如见[42]）：-

我担心这是不可能的。财政紧缩对我们打击很大。数学家们从来就没有任何资金可用于支付外部讲演者的费用。我们唯一一次支付讲演者费用，即哈拉尔·玻尔，是靠物理学家宴会上掉下的一点残羹剩饭提供的。……我本打算今年招一个新人，但资金没有到位。过去他们通常支付参加重要会议的铁路费；今年这项也取消了，所以我得自费去新奥尔良。不过，这场萧条不会永远持续下去。

贝尔有幸当选为美国数学协会主席，并在1931-33年间担任该职位。作为主席，他在American Mathematical Monthly上发表了问题和评论。

贝尔写了几本关于数学史的通俗书籍。他还对解析数论、丢番图分析和数值函数做出了贡献。以他的名字命名的两个概念是“贝尔数”和“贝尔多项式”。这些概念在他1934年发表的两篇论文Exponential Numbers和Exponential Polynomials中引入。尽管他写了250篇研究论文，包括获得马克希莫·博谢纪念奖的那篇，但贝尔最为人所铭记的是他的通俗书籍，因此作为数学史家。

他的书Algebraic Arithmetic（1927年）并非这些通俗作品之一，而是一部重要的研究专著。伦纳德·尤金·迪克森在评论该书时写道[37]：-

一个核心特征是作者算术释义原理的新呈现，这使他在1924年与所罗门·莱夫谢茨教授共同获得了马克希莫·博谢奖。……这部原创且学术性的著作是美国数学界的荣耀。

The Development of Mathematics（1940年）的写作水平也高于他的通俗作品。贝尔解释说，他为这本书选择了材料：-

……在与众多从艰苦个人经验中了解数学发明意味着什么的专业人士协商后。根据他们的建议，只考虑过去一千年的主要趋势，并且仅通过每个趋势中的典型重大事件来呈现这些趋势。

迪尔克·扬·斯特勒伊克在评论The Development of Mathematics时写道：-

作者作为一位有创造力的数学家、教师和感兴趣的同行，其经验使得在原本侧重事实的成就综述之间，能够穿插生动的评论、精辟的总结和富有挑战性的展望。这些综述价值不一，在算术、代数及相关领域尤为出色，而在作者专业不太熟悉的领域则多少失去了完整性。

关于这两本书的书评摘录见THIS LINK。

他的许多通俗作品成为了经典。在这一层次上，贝尔写的书包括Men of Mathematics（1937）和Mathematics, Queen and Servant of Science（1951）。

关于贝尔这些及其他通俗作品的书评摘录，读者应查阅THIS LINK。

A Broadbent，见[24]，以下列方式描述了贝尔及其写作：-

他的风格清晰而充满活力，他的观点，无论我们是否同意，都表达得有力，常常带有幽默和一丝温和的恶意。他不是一个不加批判的崇拜者，既迅速指出错失的机会，也迅速指出取得的进展，因此从他的书中我们看到数学是人类探索性思维的高级活动，常常会出错，但始终在永无止境地追求数学真理。

Kenneth O May写道：-

[贝尔的]洞见和挑衅性风格继续影响和吸引着职业数学家——尽管它们存在历史不准确之处，有时还有异想天开的解释。

另一位数学史家安·希布纳·科布利茨的评论则远没有那么客气：-

[贝尔]很可能被后世数学家和历史学家视为数学史上的传奇制造者。数学家们对前辈的扭曲印象，很大程度上要归咎于他。

罗杰·L·库克曾写道，贝尔对柯瓦列夫斯卡娅的描述是：-

……令人愤怒的居高临下、充满影射的歪曲。

除了通俗和高层次的著作外，贝尔还写了许多论文，在其中对许多主题发表了他强烈、往往具有挑衅性的观点。

我们在THIS LINK给出贝尔八篇论文的摘录。

贝尔 并未将自己的写作局限于数学，他还以 弗瑞兹·约翰 Taine 之名出版了十六部科幻小说 [3]：-

……借口，贝尔自己曾写道，是如果这些通俗小说能赚钱，一些出版商可能会对更严肃的书感兴趣。

鉴于贝尔惊人的数学产出，他每年还能写出两三本科幻小说，实在令人惊叹。他是在圣诞假和暑假做这件事的，通常每本书只用三四周就写完。他的妻子帮了他，她根据贝尔的手稿打字并编辑这些书。他的大部分科幻小说写于1920年至1940年之间[71]：-

贝尔的科幻小说以其暴力而著称。其中充斥着压倒性的自然灾难、史前爬行动物怪物、变成野兽的人和变成真菌状生长物的人。所有这些刺激的恐怖都以令人毛骨悚然的细节和恶魔般的快感加以描写，以至于贝尔的书几乎全都落入让人爱不释手的一类——甚至对贝尔那些从未打算读它们、容易感到恶心的学术同行来说也是如此。

他最初取得巨大成功的作品包括 The Purple Sapphire（1924年）、Green Fire（1928年）、The Greatest Adventure（1930年）和 Before the Dawn（1934年）。尽管 贝尔（以 约翰 Taine 之名）当时被誉为顶尖科幻作家之一，但这些书并未成为经典，如今已鲜有人阅读。

大多数人都知道 贝尔 和 Taine 是同一个人，但 Pasadena Star-News 的编辑决定开个玩笑，请 约翰 Taine 评论 E T 贝尔 1934年的书 The Magic of Numbers。Taine 在评论中表示，他同意该书封面上对这本书的描述：-

……贝尔以无与伦比的机智和洞察力，把《The Magic of Numbers》写成了一部人类历史……一部活生生的人物传记，讲述那些在某一科学和哲学发展中曾扮演并仍在扮演如此重要角色的人。

Pasadena Star-News的一位读者没有领会这个玩笑，她向该报编辑投诉，说让一位科幻作家来评论贝尔博士的书，是对他的侮辱！

最后我们应当提到贝尔的其他兴趣。他写了好几卷诗，这或许是他最大的爱好，但他从未因此获得任何真正的认可。他多次试图将它们出版，却收效甚微。有两卷诗集，Recreations和The Singer，是他自费出版的。他还喜爱绘画、园艺和养猫[71]：-

他的画作，连同他已故妻子的画作，挂满了他位于帕萨迪纳家中的墙壁。贝尔的花园在鼎盛时期繁花似锦，即便在邻居们还在设法催出几株番红花的时候也是如此。甚至贝尔家的猫似乎也 somehow 比大多数猫更大、繁殖得更多。

贝尔在沃森维尔医院度过了他生命中的最后一年。他在那里有一间房间，里面放着他的书、抽印本、小说和他的通俗数学书。然而，他大部分时间都在读诗。他床上常常有一只小猫。起初他抽雪茄，但在他把床点着之后，他被告知只有在房间里还有别人时才能抽烟。他在签署由西蒙与舒斯特出版The Last Problem的合同十五天后在医院去世。

Eric Temple Bell's parents were Helen Jane Lindsay Lyall and James Bell. James was a fish-curer and fruit grower, a fact which E T Bell did not mention in his autobiographical writings. For some reason he chose to hide the first part of his life, even from his own son and his wife. Eric was the younger of his parents' two sons, the elder being James Redward Bell. He also had a sister Enid Lyall Bell. In 1884 the family left Scotland for the United States where they lived in San José in California. After the death of Bell's father on 4 January 1896, Eric returned to Britain with his mother, sister and older brother. From 1898 Bell attended Bedford Modern School where excellent mathematics teaching gave him his life-long interest in the subject. In particular, his interest in number theory came from this time. He wrote [21]:-

My interest in mathematics began with two school prizes, one in Greek, the other for physical laboratory, both richly bound in full calf. The Greek prize was Clerk Maxwell's classic on electricity and magnetism, the other, Homer's Odyssey. My cousin got the prize for Greek, I got the other. He read mine, I tried, and failed, to read his. The integral signs were particularly baffling to one who had not gone beyond the binomial theorem for a positive integral exponent. The calculus was not a school subject at the time, so my mother paid for private lessons from a man - the late Edward Mann Langley - who was the best teacher I ever had. From him I learned what $\Large\frac{dy}{dx}\normalsize$ and $\int y dx$ mean. The rest was comparatively easy, and I found myself in possession of a key that unlocks a hundred doors.

Edward Mann Langley (1851-1933) taught at Bedford Modern School from 1878 to 1918. He wrote many mathematics textbooks during these years and founded the Mathematical Gazette in 1894. In 1902 Bell, but not the rest of his family, returned to the United States. He says in his autobiographical writing that he left England:-

... to escape being shoved into Woolwich or the India Civil Service.

He entered Stanford University in 1902, being awarded an A.B. with honours in mathematics two years later. For the next three years he supported himself in San Francisco teaching at a private preparatory school. On 18 April 1906 San Francisco was hit by a major earthquake. Following the earthquake much of central San Francisco was destroyed by a fire. Bell realised that the boarding house he was living in was about to be destroyed by fire and, to save his precious books, he buried them in the garden. In particular he buried his most treasured number theory book, Édouard Lucas's Théorie des Nombres (1891). His efforts were only partially successful since he did not bury the books deep enough to avoid the extreme heat of the fire. For the rest of his life he kept these treasured books, still readable but badly scorched by the fire. He then studied for his Master's Degree at the University of Washington in Seattle which he entered in 1907 having been awarded a Denny Fellowship. In the spring of 1908 he was awarded an M.A. and then moved to San José where, in an attempt to make some money, he wrote his first science fiction novel. From 1909 to 1911 he taught at Yreka High School in Yreka, Siskayou County in northern California. This school, which had been established in 1893, was destroyed by fire in 1916, five years after Bell left. He received his doctorate from Columbia University in 1912, after one year of study, for the dissertation The Cyclotomic Quinary Quintic. In this work Bell further developed Eisenstein's extension of Gauss's determination of the regular polygons constructible with straight edge and compasses only. At Columbia his doctoral work was supervised by Cassius Jackson Keyser (1862-1947). Two years before he received his doctorate, at the end of 1910, Bell married Jessie Lillian Smith Brown who was a widow he had met at Yreka High School where she taught art and commercial subjects. They had one son whom they named Taine Temple Bell, born on 27 September 1917. Constance Reid writes in [62] that Bell's wife:-

... was described as "putting starch" into him. To friends they seemed almost like one person. It is thus especially strange that he never told her the details of his family background or his early life.

Their son Taine [62]:-

... enjoyed a certain notoriety as a child after he observed a cross on a church steeple and asked what they'd put the plus-sign up there for.

Taine did not follow his father into mathematics but became a medical doctor. His father was very unhappy and considered his son a failure for not obtaining a Ph.D.

Bell taught mathematics at the University of Washington from 1912 being appointed first as an Instructor but rose to the rank of Professor over the fourteen years he taught at the university. It was at the University of Washington that Bell gained a reputation as one of the leading mathematicians in the United States. Most of his research was into the theory of numbers, the area of mathematics that he loved most dearly. The American Mathematical Society awarded him their Bôcher Memorial Prize in 1924 for his memoir, Arithmetical paraphrases which had appeared in the Transactions of the American Mathematical Society in 1921. In 1922 one of Bell's students began to show remarkable abilities, this student being Howard Percy Robertson. Having he graduated with his bachelor's degree in 1922, Robertson began studying for his master's degree and took Bell's course on mechanics. Bell wrote to his former student Harold Hotelling, who had graduated from the University of Washington in 1919, on 3 April 1922 (see [42]):-

[Robertson] was just 19 last month, and he goes through the most difficult problems and theory like a shot. Even complicated set-ups in problems by Lagrange's equations don't bother him in the least ... Robertson is a prize.

Bell had found the theory of relativity particularly stimulating and gave a course that was taken by Robertson. Bell confided in Hotelling that if he had not sunk fifteen years of his life into number theory, he would have loved to undertake research into relativity theory. He did persuade Robertson that this was a fascinating topic and, with Bell's encouragement, he went on to make a name for himself in this and related areas.

In 1924 Bell was appointed to the Council of the American Mathematical Society. He became vice-president of the Society in 1926. The award of the Bôcher Prize, and his growing reputation, saw Bell receive offers of professorships from several universities including the University of Michigan, Bryn Mawr University, and Columbia University. Bell neither accepted nor rejected these offers but tried to keep them open. In the summer 1925 he lectured at the University of Chicago on his research while in the autumn he lectured at Harvard. Chicago tried to entice him to accept a professorship there but in early 1926 the experimental physicist Robert A Millikan from the California Institute of Technology got permission from the University Council to do everything possible to attract Bell to Caltech. Millikan had sought advice on Bell from L E Dickson, G D Birkhoff and Oswald Veblen beginning late in 1924, in particular asking if he was National Academy of Sciences standard. Dickson had praised him highly, suggesting that Bell would be elected to the National Academy of Sciences before his colleague Harry Bateman, while G D Birkhoff had been less enthusiastic writing:-

... outside his specialty, his work is not always of high order.

After an initial approach from Millikan, Bell played off a good offer from Columbia University to get an improved offer from Caltech. After a month negotiating, he accepted an offer from Caltech which was less than that offered by Columbia but he preferred to accept [42]:-

... Millikan's invitation to come to Caltech because the Institute had already acquired a certain cachet in scientific circles and, perhaps just as important, because it was situated on the West Coast.

He was appointed professor of mathematics at the California Institute of Technology in 1926, holding that post until illness forced him to retire a year before his death. Dickson's prediction that Bell would soon be elected to the National Academy of Sciences proved correct: he was elected in 1927, three years before Bateman. Also in 1927 Bell was invited to give the American Mathematical Society Colloquium Lecture. He delivered the lecture on 'Algebraic arithmetic'.

The Depression made life hard at Caltech as it did everywhere. Bell wrote to Veblen in 1931 explaining he had no funds to invite him to visit (see for example [42]):-

I fear it is out of the question. The financial stringency has hit us hard. The mathematicians never did have any funds available to pay outside lecturers. The one time when we did pay a lecturer, namely Harald Bohr, was provided for by a crumb dropped from the physicists' banquet. ... I was to have got a new man this year, but the money wasn't forthcoming. In the past they have usually paid railway fare to essential meetings; this year that also is cut out, so I shall have to pay my way to New Orleans. However, this depression can't last forever.

Bell had the honour of being elected President of the Mathematical Association of America and he held the position during the years 1931-33. As President, he published problems and reviews in the American Mathematical Monthly.

Bell wrote several popular books on the history of mathematics. He also made contributions to analytic number theory, Diophantine analysis and numerical functions. Two concepts which bear his name are the 'Bell numbers' and the 'Bell polynomials'. These were introduced in his papers Exponential Numbers and Exponential Polynomials, both published in 1934. Although he wrote 250 research papers, including the one which received the Bôcher Memorial Prize, Bell is best remembered for his popular books, and therefore as an historian of mathematics.

His book Algebraic Arithmetic (1927) was not one of these popular works but an important research monograph. L E Dickson, reviewing the book writes [37]:-

A central feature is the new presentation of the author's principle of arithmetical paraphrases, which won him the Bôcher prize in 1924, jointly with Professor Lefschetz. ... This original and scholarly book is an honour to American mathematics.

The Development of Mathematics (1940) was also written at a higher level than his popular works. Bell explained that he had chosen his material for this book:-

... after consultation with numerous professionals who knew from hard personal experience what mathematical invention means. On their advice, only main trends of the past thousand years are considered, and these are presented only through typical major episodes in each.

D J Struik, reviewing The Development of Mathematics writes:-

The experience of the author as a creative mathematician, a teacher and interested colleague has made it possible to place lively comments, pithy summaries and challenging outlooks between an otherwise factual survey of achievements. These surveys have unequal merits, excelling in arithmetic and algebra and in related fields, and losing their completeness somewhat in regions less professionally familiar to the author.

See THIS LINK for extracts of reviews of these two books.

Many of his popular works became classics. At this level Bell wrote books which included Men of Mathematics (1937) and Mathematics, Queen and Servant of Science (1951).

For extracts to reviews of these and other popular books by Bell, the reader should consult THIS LINK.

A Broadbent, see [24], described Bell and his writing in the following way:-

His style is clear and exuberant, his opinions, whether we agree with them or not, are expressed forcefully, often with humour and a little gentle malice. He was no uncritical hero-worshipper being as quick to mark the opportunity lost as the ground gained, so that from his books we get a vision of mathematics as a high activity of the questing human mind, often fallible, but always pressing on the never-ending search for mathematical truth.

Kenneth O May has written:-

[Bell's] insights and provocative style continue to influence and intrigue professional mathematicians - in spite of their historical inaccuracies and sometimes fanciful interpretations.

Another historian of mathematics, Ann Hibner Koblitz, is much less kind in her remarks:-

[Bell] might well become known to future generations of mathematicians and historians as the legend maker of the history of mathematics. It is to him that mathematicians are largely indebted for distorted impressions of their predecessors.

Roger L Cooke has written that Bell's description of Sofia Kovalevskaya is an:-

... infuriatingly patronising, innuendo-laden mistreatment.

In addition to popular and high-level books, Bell also wrote many papers in which he gave his strong, often provocative, views on many subjects.

We give extracts from eight of Bell's papers at THIS LINK.

Bell did not confine his writing to mathematics and he also published sixteen science fiction novels under the name John Taine [3]:-

... the excuse, Bell himself once wrote, being that if these popular novels made money, some publishers might be interested in more serious books.

Given the remarkable mathematical output of Bell, it is amazing that he was able to write two or three science fiction books each year. He did this in the Christmas and summer vacations, usually taking only three or four weeks to write each book. He was helped by his wife who typed and edited the books from Bell's manuscripts. Most of his science fiction books were written between 1920 and 1940 [71]:-

Bell's science fiction is distinguished by its violence. It abounds in overwhelming catastrophes of nature, prehistoric reptilian monsters, men turned into brute beasts and men turned into masses of fungoid growth. All these juicy horrors are described in such hair-raising detail and with such devilish pleasure that Bell's books almost all land in the can't-put-it-down class - even for some of Bell's squeamish academic colleagues who never meant to take them up at all.

Among his first works to prove great successes were The Purple Sapphire (1924), Green Fire (1928), The Greatest Adventure (1930), and Before the Dawn (1934). Although Bell (as John Taine) was known as one of the leading science fiction writers of his day, these books have not become classics and are today little read.

Most people knew that Bell and Taine were the same man but the editor of the Pasadena Star-News decided to make a joke of it by asking John Taine to review E T Bell's 1934 book The Magic of Numbers. Taine said in his review that he agreed with the description on the cover of the book that:-

... with matchless wit and insight, Eric Temple Bell has made 'The Magic of Numbers' ... a human history ... a living biography of the men who played and play so great a part in one scientific and philosophical development.

One reader of the Pasadena Star-News was not in on the joke and she complained to the editor of the paper saying it was an insult to Dr Bell to have his book reviewed by a science fiction writer!

Finally we should mention Bell's other interests. He wrote several volumes of poetry, and perhaps this was his greatest love, but he never received any real recognition for it. He tried repeatedly to get them published with little success. Two volumes of poetry, Recreations and The Singer he published at his own expense. He also loved painting, gardening and raising cats [71]:-

His paintings, with those of his late wife, cover the walls of his home in Pasadena. The Bell garden, in its heyday, was ablaze with flowers even at that time of year when the neighbors were trying to force up a couple of crocuses. And even the Bell cats seemed somehow bigger and more prolific than most cats.

Bell spent the last year of his life in Watsonville hospital. He had a room there in which he had his books, reprints, novels and his popular mathematics books. However, he spent most of the days reading poetry. Often he would have a kitten on his bed. At first he smoked cigars but after he set the bed on fire he was told that he could only smoke if someone else was in the room. He died in the hospital fifteen days after signing the contract to have The Last Problem published by Simon and Schuster.