Mathematical Encounters of the Second Kind

A number of years ago, Harriet Sheridan, then Dean of Brown University, organized a series of lectures in which individual faculty members described how it came about that they entered their various fields. I was invited to participate in this series and found in the invitation an opportunity to recall events going back to my early teens. The lecture was well received and its reception encouraged me to work up an expanded version. My manuscript lay dormant all these years. In the meanwhile,...