By then, his father was already suffering symptoms of advanced syphilis, among them increasing mental instability, and was eventually institutionalized at the recently established (and imperially sponsored) insane asylum at Mauer Öhling, 125 kilometers west of Vienna.

On July 15, 1907, Artin's mother remarried to Rudolf Hübner: a prosperous manufacturing entrepreneur from Reichenberg, Bohemia (now Liberec in the Czech Republic).

In Reichenberg, Artin formed a lifelong friendship with a young neighbor, Arthur Baer, who became an astronomer, teaching for many years at University of Cambridge.

They also rigged a telegraph between their houses, over which once Baer excitedly reported to his friend an astronomical discovery he thought he had made—perhaps a supernova, he thought—and told Artin where in the sky to look.

Of his mathematical inclinations at this early period he later wrote, "Meine eigene Vorliebe zur Mathematik zeigte sich erst im sechzehnten Lebensjahr, während vorher von irgendeiner Anlage dazu überhaupt nicht die Rede sein konnte."

By the time he completed studies at the Realschule in June 1916, he was awarded the Reifezeugnis (diploma—not to be confused with the Abitur) that affirmed him "reif mit Auszeichnung" (qualified with distinction) for graduation to a technical university.

At some length, the article described a variety of technical methods, concluding finally with—Artin laughingly recalled in later years—"la caccia diretta" ("the direct hunt").

How this Leipzig Reifezeugnis differed technically from the one he had been granted at Reichenberg is unclear from the document, but it apparently qualified him for regular matriculation as a student at the university, which normally required the Abitur.

In June 1921 he was awarded the Doctor of Philosophy degree, based on his "excellent" dissertation, "Quadratische Körper im Gebiete der höheren Kongruenzen" ("Quadratic Fields in the domain of higher congruences"), and the oral examination which—his diploma affirms—he had passed three days earlier "with extraordinary success."

The following October, however, he accepted an equivalent position at Hamburg, where in 1923, he completed the Habilitation thesis (required of aspirants to a professorship in Germany), and on July 24 advanced to the rank of Privatdozent.

Iceland (before the transforming presence of American and British forces stationed there during World War II) was still a primitive country in 1925, with a thinly scattered population and little transportation infrastructure.

The group regularly entertained their Icelandic hosts, not in full exchange for board and lodging, to be sure, but for goodwill certainly, and sometimes for a little extra on their plates, or a modestly discounted tariff.

From Akureyri, they trekked west down the Öxnadalur (Ox Valley) intending to rent pack horses and cross the high and barren interior by foot to Reykjavík.

By the time they reached the lower end of Skagafjörður, however, they were persuaded by a local farmer from whom they had hoped to rent the horses that a cross-country trek was by then impracticable; with the approach of winter, highland routes were already snow-bound and impassable.

He kept up on a serious level with advances in astronomy, chemistry and biology (he owned and used a fine microscope), and the circle of his friends in Hamburg attests to the catholicity of his interests.

Once tipped off, she and Artin became very aware of the watcher (Natascha liked to refer to him as their "spy"), and even rather enjoyed the idea of his being forced to follow them on the long walks they loved taking in the afternoons to a café far out in the countryside.

Hasse offered to exert his influence with the Ministry of Education (Kultur- und Schulbehörde, Hochschulwesen), and Artin—not daring to leave any stone unturned, especially with respect to the safety of his children—went along with this effort.

By this time, to be precise, on July 15, 1937, because of Natascha's status as "Mischling ersten Grades," Artin had lost his post at the university—technically, compelled into early retirement—on the grounds of paragraph 6 of the Act to Restore the Professional Civil Service (Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums) of April 7, 1933.

On March 15, 1937, the response had come back denying his application for leave on the grounds that his services to the university were indispensable ("Da die Tätigkeit des Professors Dr. Artin an der Universität Hamburg nicht entbehrt werden kann.

Since German law forbade emigrants taking more than a token sum of money out of the country, the Artins sank all the funds at their disposal into shipping their entire household, from beds, tables, chairs and double-manual harpsichord down to the last kitchen knife, cucumber slicer, and potato masher to their new home.

Terrified that should this opportunity be missed, the window of escape from Nazi Germany might close forever, Artin and Natascha chose to risk somehow getting Karin past emigration and customs officials without their noticing her condition.

When they landed a week later at Hoboken, New Jersey, Richard Courant and Natascha's father, the Russian agronomist Naum Jasny (then working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture) were on the dock to welcome the family to the United States.

It was early November 1937 by the time they arrived in South Bend, where Artin joined the faculty at Notre Dame, and taught for the rest of that academic year.

There was a radio, but (with the notable exception of Sunday morning broadcasts by E. Power Biggs from the organ at the Busch-Reisinger Museum in Cambridge, to which Artin and Natascha listened still lounging in bed) it was switched on only to hear news of the war.

On May 8, 1945, at the news of Germany's surrender and the fall of the Third Reich, Natascha made the mistake of reminding him of this vow, and in lieu of a champagne toast, he indulged in what was intended to be the smoking of a single, celebratory cigarette.

The family moved there in the fall of 1946. Notable among his graduate students at Princeton are Serge Lang, John Tate, Harold N. Shapiro, and O. Timothy O'Meara.

Whether it was their technical advice, or Natascha's intuitive suggestion that it might be too cold in the basement, and that he should try the procedure upstairs in the warmth of his study (which he did), he completed the grinding of the mirror in a matter of days.

[8] Artin was one of the leading algebraists of the century, with an influence larger than might be guessed from the one volume of his Collected Papers edited by Serge Lang and John Tate.

The first concerns Artin L-functions for a linear representation of a Galois group; and the second the frequency with which a given integer a is a primitive root modulo primes p, when a is fixed and p varies.

[11] Artin advised over thirty doctoral students, including Bernard Dwork, Serge Lang, K. G. Ramanathan, John Tate, Harold N. Shapiro,[12] Hans Zassenhaus and Max Zorn.