80 More Gays Around the World: Part 20) Swedish Legacies

Last time on “80 More Gays”: 53) Narses (c.478-c.568), one of the greatest military commanders of the Byzantine Empire, was open about his gender variance, unlike the “Father of the American Cavalry”, recently discovered to have been intersex, 54) Casimir Pulaski (1745-1779), a descendant of the same noble family as mathematician 55) Sofya Kovalevskaya (1850-1891).

 

55) Sofya Kovalevskaya was born Sofya Korvin-Krakovskaya in Moscow. Her father was a direct descendant of the Korwin family, as was 54) Casimir Pulaski. Some genealogists doubt her father’s descent from the Korwins but his unchallenged use of the Korwin coat of arms in his lifetime by the Russian Imperial Heroldmeister (Master Herald) strongly suggests that he was.

 

As a female in Russia at that time the only way Sofya would have obtained a university education was by studying outside the country, and she needed written permission from either her father of her husband to do so. To this end in 1868 she married a radical young palaeontology student called Vladimir Kovalevsij, thus becoming Sofya Kovalevskaya. The marriage was “fake” and both parties were aware it was only made to allow Sofya to study abroad.

 

Sofya travelled around Europe with Vladimir, attending various universities and learned men. By her early 20s Sofya had earned her doctorate. She was a pioneer female mathematician and the first woman in Europe to earn a modern doctorate in maths (from the University of Göttingen in 1874). Sofya was also one of the first women to be appointed a professor (Stockholm University).

 

Sofya’s mathematical papers and theories influenced later generations and includes everything from differential equations (the Cauchy-Kovalevskaya theorem is partly named after her) to the rings of Saturn.

 

She and Vladimir spent their final years in Sweden. Following the death of Vladimir, from whom she had separated, Sofya became professor of maths at Stockholm University. Sofya died in Stockholm at the young age of 41 from flu and pneumonia. She is buried in Norra Begraviningsplaten, the “Northern Cemetery”, where several notable Swedes were buried, including Alfred Nobel, whose prize for literature with crop up later.

 

Among the famous Swedes buried in Norra Bergaviningspalten is a film director who helped to bring a rising star to Hollywood. That director was called 56) Mauritz Schiller (1883-1928).

 

Mauritz was a pioneer of the early Swedish film industry. In 1912 he wrote and acted in his first film, a short silent film. The silent film industry was beginning to boom around the world and there was an eager audience everywhere. Mauritz appeared in another four films in 1912, also directing three of them. He went on to direct and write another 45 short and feature-length films before being invited to Hollywood by MGM Studios in 1925. Mauritz took with him a young actress he had talent-spotted and featured in one of his recent films, an actress called Greta Garbo.

 

Mauritz Stiller never became a big Hollywood legend himself like his protégé. He was often at odds with the bosses at MGM and Paramount and he returned to Sweden in 1927. He was eventually honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.

 

Although many of his film scripts were original Mauritz also adapted plays and novels. One of these was his 1916 film “Vingarme” (Wings), one of the earliest gay love stories ever made. It was adapted from a novel by gay Danish writer Herman Bangs.

 

uritz wrote and directed several films by the same author including the film in which he gave Greta Garbo her first screen role in 1924. The author of the original novel on which the film was based was 57) Selma Lagerlöf (1858-1940).

 

In 1919 Selma Lagerlöf sold all the film rights to any yet to be published works to the Swedish Cinema Theatre and Mauritz Stiller was one of several Swedish film-makers to adapt Selma’s novels for the screen.

 

Selma was already a famous novelist by 1919. Her first novel was “Gosta Berling’s Saga”, published in 1891, and was the basis of the film Mauritz made just before going to Hollywood. Selma’s works became very popular in Sweden and she was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1904. She didn’t win, though the Swedish Academy who award her their gold medal.

 

Selma was nominated again for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1905. Again she didn’t win. She was further nominated in 1906, 1907, 1908 and 1909. Selma finally won in 1909, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. In 1914 she also became the first woman to be elected to the Swedish Academy and in 1924 she was a judge in the literature contests at the Olympic Games in Paris.

 

A well as being nominated and awarded a Nobel Prize Selma Lagerlöf also twice nominated names herself as a member of the Swedish Academy. In both 1920 and 1922 she nominated Danish writer Georg Brandes. His 1922 nomination lost to 58) Jacinto Benevente (1866-1954).

 

Next time on “80 More Gays”:  We sweep across the Spanish stage and bank on the Rothschilds to follow in their theatrical footsteps before living life in the fast lane.

Around the World in 80 Gays : Part 17 - A Spy

LAST TIME : 48) Keith Tomlinson (b.1980) climbed Mount Elbrus in Russia, one of the 7 highest continental mountains (the Seven Summits), a mountaineering challenge completed by 49) Cason Crane (b.1992). A parallel challenge of running a marathon on each continent has been completed by 50) Todd J. Henry, an astronomer who searched for extra-terrestrial intelligence, a subject speculated upon in the 16^th century by 51) Giordano Bruno (1548-1600).

51) Giordano Bruno was one of the leading mathematicians of his age, though his controversial views on the multiple existence of Christ on alien worlds put him in the black books of scientists and the Church alike and led to his execution for heresy.

In 1591 he applied for the vacant professorship of mathematics at Padua University. He was unsuccessful. Instead the position went to an up-and-coming mathematician by the name of Galileo. But then Galileo had influential patrons who campaigned on his behalf him to the university, though they denied it. These patrons were the Del Monte brothers, one of whom was 52) Cardinal Francesco del Monte (1549-1627).

Cardinal del Monte was also an amateur mathematician like his brothers, and it was his eldest brother, the Marchese del Monte, who influenced Galileo’s work on trajectories. The Cardinal is most famous (apart from being the first recorded owner of the Portland vase) as the patron of another rising young star of the Renaissance, the artist Caravaggio, under his patronage he painted “The Cardsharps”.

After failing to get the professorship at Padua Giordano Bruno found himself increasingly at odds with both the Church and the authorities over his views. Very shortly afterwards he became the subject of the heresy trial that led to his execution.

It is Bruno’s two-year stay in England that leads us on to the most intriguing (in more ways than one) period of his life. In 1583 he arrived in London as a guest of the French ambassador to the court of Queen Elizabeth I. The ambassador had made many friends in London, a few of them from the world of the theatre as well as politics. It was probably at one of his many dinners that the ambassador introduced Giordano Bruno to 53) Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593).

I cannot bring Marlowe into the story without mentioning two things about him. The first is his role as a spy, the other we’ll come to later. The French ambassador was no stranger to espionage himself. As ambassador he was able to place French Catholic spies at Elizabeth’s Protestant court and, no doubt, knew who some of Elizabeth’s spies were. Perhaps he knew that Christopher Marlowe was a spy.

Marlowe was just one of many in the pay of Elizabeth’s spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham. He was employed for many years to spy on Catholic sympathisers and plotters. But the French ambassador probably didn’t know there was another spy living under his very nose.

When Giordano Bruno arrived there was a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth, invade England from Spain, and put Mary Queen of Scots on the throne. Plans for this were rather carelessly revealed during the after-dinner chat at the French ambassador’s residence. Walsingham was informed and the plotter executed for treason. Walsingham had a double agent working in the ambassador’s house called Henry Fagot. It has been revealed in recent years that Fagot was actually 51) Giordano Bruno.

The other thing to mention about 53) Christopher Marlowe is his often alleged authorship of some (or all) of the works of Shakespeare. While this is a subject of constant discussion and speculation there is evidence that one of Marlowe’s works influenced one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays.

Another famous writer often alleged to have written Shakespeare’s plays, or at least the ones written after Marlowe’s death was Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626). He makes just a cameo appearance today because his brother, 54) Anthony Bacon (1558-1601), also worked in Walsingham’s spy ring. One intriguing theory put forward recently is that Christopher Marlowe faked his own death and that Anthony Bacon helped him to escape to France.

Back to Marlowe’s influence on Shakespeare. “Titus Andronicus” is one of the Bard’s early plays whose authorship has been questioned the most. It isn’t considered one of his best. T. S. Eliot called it “one of the stupidest and most uninspired plays ever written”. In that respect it can be said to have inspired a genre of film that is popular purely because it is just that.

“Titus Andronicus” was partly inspired by several Elizabethan revenge tragedies, one of which was called “Tambourline”, written by Christopher Marlowe. What marks “Titus” out is its violence and gore. It was very popular with Elizabethan audiences, and it still is. A recent production by The Globe even had people fainting in the audience because of the graphic nature of the modern stage effects of rape and mutilation. It’s all very reminiscent of the reports of audience reactions when “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” was first released. And that’s the next connection in the chain (pardon the pun).

Modern slasher films and splatter movies are deliberately made to highlight the gore and horror and are not known for their strength of script or depth of character. Most characters are there purely to be disposed of in the most gruesome and entertaining manner possible. T. S. Eliot could have used his above-quoted remark to describe any slasher film. However, it is a genre with a distinguished history going back to “Titus Andronicus” and beyond and remains one of the greatest contributors to modern culture.

Even though there have been many lgbt characters in horror and slasher films over the years (the most famous being Norman Bates in “Psycho”), and there have been many lgbt horror writers, the genre didn’t really get a specifically gay slasher film until 2004 when “Hellbent” was released. The writer and director of that film was 55) Paul Etheredge.

When “80 Gays” returns in a couple of weeks we’ll discover what slasher films have in common with Wimbledon.

Around the World in 80 Gays - the First Catch-Up

Regular readers will may have been following this continuing series. We’re half way through it, now, so for those of you who have jumped into the middle of it and don’t know what it’s all about, or for regular readers who want to remind themselves of how far we've got, here’s a quick catch-up on the first 20 names that I connected together in my quest to go “Around the World in 80 Gays”.

1) Alan Turing (1912-1954), the “Father of the Computer”, without whose mathematical theories this and other blogs would not exist, was the subject of a 2014 film called “The Imitation Game”. It was based on a biography by the film’s consultant …

2) Andrew Hodges (b.1949), another mathematician who brought Turing to the attention of the wider public in his biography of Turing, which was instrumental in revealing his code-breaking work at Bletchley Park during World War II. Other gay code-breakers at Bletchley included …

3) Noel Currer-Briggs (1919-2004) who, after the war, turned to genealogy and the quest to find the origin of the Holy Grail. In his quest he also traced the ownership of the Shroud of Turin back to the 1200s. His Grail research was heavily influenced by that of a previous Grail historian called …

4) Otto Rahn (1909-1939) whose own Grail Quest was of particular interest to the Nazis and he got a huge boost to fund his research whey they employed him to find it. However, when they received intelligence that he was gay they sent Rahn to work as a guard at Dachau concentration camp. Rahn’s Grail research became the inspiration for a book called “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” which, in turn, was the inspiration for “The Da Vinci Code” novel, which claimed that …

5) Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) belonged to a secret organisation that protected the Holy Grail from discovery. The film version of “The Da Vinci Code” starred …

6) Sir Ian McKellen (b.1939), whose first major stage success was in a play called “Bent”. This was set in Dachau concentration camp, where 4) Otto Rahn had once been forced to work as a guard. “Bent” was about the persecution of gay men by the Nazis, many thousands of whom were imprisoned, including former national German heroes like …

7) Otto Peltzer (1900-1970), one of Germany’s top athletes. Like 4) Otto Rahn, Peltzer joined the SS hoping it would help further his career. When his homosexuality was discovered in 1936 Peltzer was sent to a concentration camp, denying him the opportunity to compete in the Berlin Olympics. He was already an Olympic hero, having first competed in Amsterdam in 1928, becoming the first known male lgbt Olympian. The honour of being the first lgbt medal winner and first known female lgbt Olympian, also at the 1928 Amsterdam games, was …

8) Renée Sintenis (1888-1965). However, Renée wasn’t an athlete but a sculptor. The Olympics had contests for various arts a century ago, and Renée’s sculpture in 1928 won her a bronze medal. She also sculpted the famous Berlin bear statue which was used as the basis for the “Oscar” of the International Berlin Film Festival. 6) Sir Ian McKellen won one of these Golden Bear statuettes for his lifetime achievement in film. Back on the Olympic track in 1928 was a South African who wasn’t gay but who was a great influence on his grandson who is, …

9) Jacques Snyman Wiechiech (b.1973). Jacques was encouraged by his Olympian grandfather to take up sport. He excelled at several sports in his childhood, particularly gymnastics. In 2006 Jacques won 3 gold medals at the Gay Games in Chicago, including one in decathlon, the sport in which the founder of the Gay Games competed at the 1968 Mexico Olympics, …

10) Tom Waddell (1937-1987). Tom founded the Gay Games in 1982 and it became the biggest international multi-sport event in the world. It has encouraged many thousands of amateurs and professionals to compete as openly gay athletes (also permitting athletes to compete anonymously if so desired). One is the above-mentioned 9) Jacques Snyman Wiechiech who, while he was living in the UK, was also a member of the King’s Cross Steelers, a gay rugby club whose Chair was also a Gay Games competitor called …

11) Tim Sullivan (b.1961). Tim’s own contribution to lgbt sport, as Chair of the King’s Cross Steelers, was recognised by the London 2012 Olympic Committee when he was selected as one of the Olympic torch relay runners. There have been a small group of other relay runners chosen specifically for their contributions to lgbt causes. An earlier relay runner, and yet another Gay Games competitor, was …

12) Shaun Mellors (b.1965) who was chosen to carry the Olympic torch through Cape Town, South Africa, because of his work with HIV+ gay men and AIDS education. Shaun was not alone that year, because also on the Cape Town leg of the Athens 2004 Olympic torch relay was …

13) Prudence Mabele (1971), the first woman to publicly reveal her HIV+ status in South Africa. In 1999 the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission awarded Prudence a prize which, like her place on the 2004 Olympic torch relay, was in recognition of her work in AIDS education. The award was named after …

14) Felipa de Souza (1556-c.1600), a Portuguese colonist living in Brazil. Felipa was reported to the Brazilian Inquisition of 1591 for lesbian behaviour. Even though she was found guilty Felipa escaped the death penalty and was exiled. Another member of the lgbt community arrested and convicted during the same Inquisition was …

15) Francisco “Xica” Manicongo. Xica is the earliest recorded transsexual in South America. She was an African slave who behaved and dressed as a woman though she was biologically male. In modern-day Brazil the trans community commemorate her with Xica Manicongo Day in May. Despite having a large trans community Brazil is the country which regularly comes at the top of the table for transgender murders, a fact brought to light every year on the Transgender Day of Remembrance. This day of remembrance was created following the 1998 murder of …

16) Rita Hester (1963-1998) in Boston, Massachusetts. Her murder galvanised Boston’s lgbt community into action which had been alerted to dangers of transphobia several years earlier with the murder of …

17) Channelle Pickett (1972-1995), whose death was commemorated with a candlelit vigil. This and the similar vigil following 16) Rita Hester’s murder were organised by transgender activist …

18) Nancy Nangeroni, whose actions inspired San Francisco activists to create the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Nancy helped to organise Boston’s first Pride march which commemorated the murder of 16) Rita Hester, as it did with the USA’s first same-sex marriage which took place in Boston’s city hall in 2004. Leading the fight for marriage recognition was a Boston couple called …

19) Hillary Goodridge (b.1956) and 20) Julie Goodridge (b.1958). The couple had attempted to get married in Boston in 2001 following the world’s first same-sex marriages which took place in the Netherlands earlier that year.

Tomorrow I’ll resume this run-down of the first 40 people in my journey “Around the World in 80 Gays”.

Stargayzing : The Pink Triangle that Pointed to the Centre of the Solar System

The pink triangle is an established symbol for a gay man. There can be no more appropriate symbol for the subject of today’s article, because the triangle was also fundamental to this man’s place in the history of science and mathematics. But most significantly, this man was responsible for letting the world know that the Earth was not the centre of the solar system. No, I’m not referring to Nicolas Copernicus, but the only man who thought Copernicus’s work was important enough to be published – Georg Joachim Rheticus (1514-1574).

A heliocentric solar system wasn’t a new idea when Copernicus came up with his theory, and parts of his theory didn’t go as far as others (he believed that the Sun was the centre of the universe and that the stars and planets were fixed onto invisible crystal spheres). He didn’t publish his findings, however, but distributed outlines of his theories to some friends. The earliest reference to one of these manuscripts comes in 1514, ironically the year Rheticus was born, and he was to be so instrumental in getting Copernicus’s theory published, again ironically, in the year Copernicus died.

Georg Joachim Rheticus was born into a wealthy family in what is now Austria. He was legally stripped of his real family name after the execution (for fraud and sorcery) of his father. Georg used his mother’s maiden name for a while, and when he began studying at Wittgenburg University he adopted a surname which referred to the region of his birth, the old Roman province of Rhaetia.

In 1536 Rheticus was appointed professor of lower mathematics, arithmetic and geometry at Wittenburg. Two years later he took a couple of years leave to travel around Europe studying and networking with other mathematicians and astronomers. This is what brought Copernicus to his attention and he went to study under him in 1539.

It was 25 years since Copernicus let a few select people know about his heliocentric theory. He was still working on it and was writing a full treatise, but he wasn’t that eager to publish it. Rheticus, however, immediately recognised the scientific value of his work and published a summary in 1540, a kind of “Beginner’s Guide”. This was well-received and fired Rheticus’s enthusiasm to see Copernicus complete his work and have it published in full. First, however, Copernicus agreed only to publish one section, that on the subject of trigonometry.

Trigonometry was one of Rheticus’s specialist areas. I’ve never been good with numbers, and at school hated trigonometry and all its sines and cosines, etc. All of this was due to Rheticus (the sines and cosines, that is, not my hatred of trigonometry). He produced innovative tables which he published in this one section of Copernicus’s treatise, in 1542. The tables were instrumental in the development of trigonometric maths and were still in use well into the 20^th century.

But it wasn’t enough for Rheticus, because he wanted to publish the whole of Copernicus’s treatise. Finally, in 1543, Copernicus relented and passed the whole manuscript to Rheticus for printing. There’s some underhand tactics shortly afterwards when Rheticus had to take up a professorship in Leipzig. He handed the supervision of publication to a creep called Andreas Osiander, who wrote an introduction declaring Copernicus’s theory was just that – theory, not fact. Unfortunately it was too late for Copernicus, who received a copy of the newly published book just before he died.

The later controversies surrounding Copernicus’s book and heliocentric theory don’t concern us here, but the later controversy surrounding Rheticus does.

After travelling around Europe again Rheticus returned to teach in Leipzig. In 1551 one of his students was the son of a local merchant. In April this merchant accused Rheticus of getting his son drunk and having sex with him. Since there are no records of Rheticus having any romantic involvement with women, or that he married, we suppose that his sexual interests were homosexual.

Rheticus left Leipzig hurriedly to avoid arrest and trial and finally settled in Krakow. He was tried in his absence in Leipzig and found guilty and sentenced to 101 years exile from the city.

In Krakow he also continued his trigonometric studies and published more tables. The Emperor Maximilian II paid him to teach 6 research assistants, so that he did not eventually die in poverty like so many contemporaries accused and convicted of sodomy.

We have no better authority than Edward Rosen (1906-1985), the world’s leading expert on Copernicus, who once stated, “Is it going too far to claim that without Rheticus, no Copernicus…?” Rosen, never one to mince his words, gained a reputation as someone who would point out (quite often with strong criticism) errors published by fellow scientists, who then corrected them in later publications. So it must have been with a degree of certainty that Rosen, and therefore us, should recognise Rheticus’s significant contribution to the way we see the universe. Copernicus could easily have died without having his heliocentric theory published, and it is Rheticus we have to thank for persuading him do so. This, together with his trigonometric work, truly makes Georg Joachim Rheticus the “Pink Triangle who Pointed to the Centre of the Solar System”.

Around the World in 80 Gays : Part 1 - A Quest

Here we go on our round the world tour of lgbt heritage. As I said in the introduction a few days ago this will be a continuous journey bringing us back to this our starting point. The problem with that is where is our starting point? Where do we start? In a continuous circle of names there is no start, so I have to decide which person will lead off the journey.

I’ve decided to start with someone who is a topical subject at the moment in the UK because of the up-and-coming Oscar and Bafta awards. One of the leading films of late 2014 was “The Imitation Game”, starring Benedict Cumberbatch in a fictionalised life story of the code-breaker (1) Alan Turing (1912-1954).

The film was inspired by one of the first major biographies of Turing that tackled the subject of his homosexuality non-judgementally. That biography was called “Alan Turing: The Enigma” and was written by (2) Dr. Andrew Hodges (b.1949).

Andrew is a mathematician and senior research fellow at the Mathematical Institute. In 1972 he began working with the eminent physicist Roger Penrose (now Sir Roger Penrose) on twistors. I won’t claim to understand twistor mathematics or how it relates to physics and quantum theory, but Andrew has been working on this enigmatic subject for over thirty years.

Speaking of “enigmatic” brings me back to (1) Alan Turing and Andrew’s biography. Andrew learnt about the fate and Turing at about the same time he began working on twistor theory. As a gay man in the 1970s Andrew also played a part in the gay liberation movement. In 1977 Andrew wanted to make the story and tragedy of Turing’s life more widely known, so he began researching for the biography which was published in 1983.

Very few people had heard of (1) Alan Turing before  (2) Andrew Hodges’ biography of him came out, and even fewer people realised what a significant part Turing had played in the World War II and, later, in the development of the computer. This is hardly surprising. All of Turing’s work, and that of everyone else at Bletchley Park, was still top secret in the 1980s. Gradually, through the 80s the work of these Bletchley Park code-breakers was revealed and many of them who were still alive began to speak of their secret wartime careers. To most historians Turing was a mathematician who came up with theories of artificial intelligence and computers. Since the 1980s, and Hodges’ biography, Turing’s work at breaking the Nazi Enigma codes gained recognition.

Also working at Bletchley Park, and responsible for breaking one of the other Nazi codes, was (3) Noel Currer-Briggs (1919-2004), one of my “Twelve Noels of Christmas” last month. Noel later became a genealogist and leading authority on the Turin Shroud. In his book “The Shroud and the Grail” (1987) Noel wrote about his research into the period between 1204 and 1353 when the Holy Grail and the Turin Shroud were “lost”, disappearing from written records after the sacking of Constantinople by the Crusaders.

Using his code-breaking mind Noel followed a whole series of clues and believed that, if it existed, the Grail passed through several families until it came into the possession of a Christian sect called the Cathars in the 14^th century. From that point the Grail disappears from history all together.

The Shroud, however, was taken to Greece and passed into the family of one of the last Templar Knights. Noel looked at the genealogical descent of this family back to Crusaders who sacked Constantinople in 1204. That family gave the Shroud to the Duke of Milan in Turin, and it has remained there ever since.

(3) Noel Currer-Briggs admitted that his theories were mostly circumstantial, but he believed the Shroud and the Grail were once inextricably linked. Unlike the Shroud, the Holy Grail had long been the subject of medieval romance poetry. Unlike the Grail, the Shroud was a proven historical object, regardless of who and why is was created.

During his research Noel followed most of the theories on the Holy Grail put forward before World War II by a German historian who said that the link between the Grail and the Templars came through one of the earliest medieval romance poems. A Templar knight called Wolfram von Eschenbach wrote a poem called “Parzival” in which the Grail featured. Wolfram located the Grail in the mystical mountain retreat called Munsalvaesche. Noel agreed that this was very probably the very real Montségur, a retreat of the Cathars. There’s no actual connection between the Templars and the Cathars, but a modern novelist has helped to confuse the two in the popular mind.

“Parzival” was the poem which first inspired that German Grail historian to pursue his quest. His name was (4) Otto Rahn, and I’ll begin Part 2 of “Around the World in 80 Gays” with Otto Rahn.

How the Leopard Got Its Mathematical Spots

According to Rudyard Kipling the leopard got it’s spots because an Ethiopian pressed his finger tips all over the cat’s fur. But for zoologists the biological origin of leopard spots, or even zebra stripes, has been a much more difficult question to answer. Heredity, genetics and evolution play roles in how these features are passed from one generation to the next, but no-one knew how they were created in the first place. I mean, one cell is much like any other in an embryo. So how, when and why does a cell decide it is going to form part of a leopard’s spot? Part of the answer came from another scientific direction – mathematics.

Alan Turing’s last major project, after being a war-time code-breaker and formulator of the theories of modern computer science, was on the matter of morphogenesis, the term used for the way in which both animals and plants develop their different parts.

As a child Alan stared at daisies and wondered how they knew when and where to grow a petal or a leaf. Later in life he began to wonder how a leopard’s spots formed, or patterns on a bird’s feather. Alan believed that chemicals must be the answer, but to explain how these chemical created patterns was another puzzle. Alan tackled it with maths.

Today we know that these patterns (sports, stripes and swirls) and shaped (ears, leaves, antlers) are determined in DNA. Alan used mathematical models to show that hormones were also responsible. Some chemical and hormones inhibit the production of certain cells, while others promote them. In this way one cell affected by a colour-producing hormone would divide and multiply quicker than the other cells around it, producing a patch. Using mathematical models to simulate the creation of these hormones and the division of cells Alan showed how numbers could help explain how animal spots are formed.

During his work Alan would show colleagues and friends papers covered with hundreds of chemical notations and mathematical formulae, some of them connected in shaded areas, and he’d say to them, “Don’t you think that looks like patches on a cow?” They must have looked back and thought “What planet are you living on, Alan?”

Since his day morphogenesis and the understanding of animal markings has progressed, all of it built on Alan’s maths and theories. He realised that his models of the process were simplifications of nature and hoped that it would be useful for future research.

Alan published his theory in 1952. Sadly he didn’t expand on his research. His house was burgled the same year. After admitting that the culprit was a former gay partner he was arrested and later convicted of gross indecency. In one of the tragic ironies of history, Alan chose to undergo treatments with hormones as his sentence rather than have time in prison. He was regulated injected with oestrogen. This hormone was known to cause men to grow breasts and inhibit sexual drive. For Alan it was living, physical evidence of the way hormones change cells, a process happening to his own body which he would have now been able to calculate mathematically.

Oestrogen also leads to anxiety and depression when injected into men, and this could have been the major factor in Alan’s decision to commit suicide in 1954, just a few weeks short of his 42^nd birthday.

1 + 1 = 1

It’s surprising how many mathematicians and computer scientists there are who are partners of others. It’s not so obvious in the other sciences. So today I’ll bring you 8 people who prove that 1 (mathematician) plus 1 (mathematician) equals 1 (couple).

The first couple are more of an “alleged couple” than a self-acknowledged one. They are Soviet mathematicians Andrei Kolmogorov (1903-1987) and Pavel Aleksandrov (1896-1982). Both men were living at a time and in a country where homosexuality was illegal. Their relationship, or friendship, began in 1929 when they went on a 3-week boat trip together down several European rivers.

Aleksandrov was topologist, a mathematician who studies shapes, forms and spaces, and was Professor of Mathematics at Moscow University. Kolmogorov was more interested in logic and virtually invented probability theory (which, ironically, sums up the common view of their relationship – it’s a probability theory by itself!).

In 1935 Aleksandrov and Kolmogorov bought a house in Moscow and they lived there together until Aleksandrov’s death in 1982. Although neither admitted their sexuality publicly, there were rumours floating around the Soviet Union for decades, and other Soviet mathematicians have said that they believed they were both gay. It seemed to be an open secret, known even by Stalin himself. Today the nature of their relationship is disputed, stating that Kolmogorov was married, but we shall see next that is no proof of heterosexuality. My own opinion is that there is enough to suggest they did have some form of romantic attachment which may, or not may not, have been physical.

One of Kolmogorov’s students links directly to an undoubtedly open gay mathematical couple – Robert MacPherson (b.1944) and Mark Goresky (b.1950). In 1977 MacPherson was approached by Kolmogorov’s  former student. Through him MacPherson got to know many Moscow mathematicians and visited them in the USSR regularly. However, Soviet maths was not freely available in the West because the over-suspicious authorities were always looking for coded political messages or state secrets in research papers submitted for publication. MacPherson continually smuggled maths research papers out of Moscow for anonymous publication in the West.

Things got worse for Russian mathematicians after the collapse of the USSR. Mathematicians and academics found it difficult to find work in the economic crisis which followed. The state had no money for maths or research. MacPherson persuaded the American Mathematical Society to start a fund to help the struggling mathematicians.

But MacPherson has been more than a maths philanthropist. With his partner Mark Goresky he discovered intersection homology, another of those complicated ideas you find in topology. MacPherson and Mark met in 1971 when Mark began as a graduate at Brown University, Rhode Island, USA, where MacPherson taught. Both men were married, but there was a chemistry between them that began almost immediately. After collaborating on the intersection homology paper the two went their separate ways, but both of their marriages began to break up soon afterwards. In 1985 they realised they were in love and they’ve been together ever since.

My next two couples are involved with the computer sciences and information technology. Ladies first.

The world of information technology and Silicon Valley often conjures up images of men in white lab coats. One female couple who are among the most powerful in IT are Megan Smith (b.1964) and Kara Swisher (b.1962). Megan is currently a vice president at Google, which she joined in 2003. She earned both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree at MIT in mechanical engineering and serves on MIT’s board. In April this year, and last year, Megan was named in “Out” magazine’s Power List of the USA’s 50 most powerful and influential lgbt people.

In 2008 Megan married Kara Swisher, a technology columnist. Their marriage was timed deliberately to be held the day before California voters overturned the same-sex marriage law that their courts had approved just 5 months beforehand.

Kara has been writing on technology issues for the Wall Street Journal for several years, and co-founded the online journal “All Things Digital” with Walt Mossberg. Even though she is married to a Google executive Kara has not shied away from criticising the company or it’s policies. In 2012 BusinessInsider.com placed Megan and Kara in it’s “18 Hottest Power Couples in Technology”, the only same-sex couple on the list.

Finally, when it comes to global communications, one gay couple has played key roles. In fact we would probably not be able to use computers for work or send emails without their contribution. Their names are Kirk McKusick (b.1954) and Eric Allman (b.1955).

Eric and Kirk have also been referred to as a “power couple”. Kirk, having a degree in electrical engineering and a PhD in computer science, worked in the 1980s as project manager at the University of California, Berkeley, on a way for computers to locate and recall saved and closed files. We take that for granted these days.

Eric worked on an early example of something else we take for granted. Also working in the 1980s Eric developed a programme which could send messages and documents from one computer to another. He called it Sendmail. Over the years he developed the programme, and it became the forerunner of toady’s emails.

Masters of Maths

There’s an old legend which tells how a mathematician invented the game of chess. You probably know a version of it. It begins with an eastern emperor (sometimes Persian, sometimes Indian, sometimes Chinese) offering a reward of gold to anyone who solves a problem in warfare strategy. One version says a mathematician invented chess in the process. The emperor is so pleased that he gives him the gold, but the wily mathematician turns it down and suggests rice grains instead. He asks for one grain of rice to be placed on the corner square of the chessboard, and that double the amount be placed on the next square, and so on, until all the squares are accounted for. The emperor agrees, unaware of the implications.

Less than one third around the board the rive grains are having to be carried in in wheelbarrows.  By the end there are 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains in total (if I’ve got my sums right). The mathematician may not have any gold, but he’s got enough rice to live on for the rest of his life.

This legend links chess and maths like no other, and it seems that people good at one are likely to be good at the other. And to illustrate this I’ve chosen some gay chess masters (no women, I’m afraid – still looking) who have successfully combined both.

 

The first is Ron Buckmire, Associate Professor of Mathematics at Occidental College, California (whom I mentioned briefly during Black History Month). Grenadan-born Ron’s interest in chess began at school in neighbouring Barbados. It wasn’t long before Ron was competing in national and international championships. My earlier reference to him mentioned his win against international chess master Geoffrey Lawton in 14 moves  at the age of 17. Here is that match in full. If you don’t understand the notation you can follow the match move by move by clicking on the “forward” button on that webpage. Even though Ron no longer plays in championships he still has International Chess Master status. It’s no surprise to learnt that he’s Grenada’s highest ever ranking chess player.

I’ve no record in my Gay Games database of Ron entering any of the chess tournaments held a three Gay Games, but I can tell you that Tigran Spaan, another Chess Master, who studied maths and computer science at the University of Amsterdam, won 2 chess gold medals at the Sydney Gay Games in 2002 (the 2002 female champion is currently Professor of Law in Melbourne, so no maths link there). At the last appearance of chess at the Gay Games in Cologne 2010 Tigran was not so successful and only went home with a bronze. He also won a bronze at the 2004 Eurogames in Munich. Spaan founded an IT company in 2000 called Gridline. He is still involved with chess and the Gay Games was a member of the organisation bidding to host the 2018 Gay Games in Amsterdam. Unfortunately, that bid fell in last week’s round of voting.

Chess is well-known for the names of it’s opening moves, often named after the players who used them most successfully. One of these openings is called Santasiere’s Folly, named after Anthony Santasiere.

Of Italian ancestry Anthony Santasiere was born in New York City in 1904. He was the 12^th of 13 children in a poor family. Despite this he developed many varied artistic interests which he pursued for the rest of his life – piano playing, painting, cooking, poetry writing, playing bridge, and, of course, chess. An elderly, rich chess fan called Alrick Man paid for Anthony’s college education on condition that Anthony spends part of the summer at his estate. It was there that Anthony developed his interest in chess.

His first success in chess, as has often been the case in many chess masters, was as a teenager. At the age of 16 he was awarded a special prize for winning all his games in the Metropolitan League. The American Chess Bulltein dubbed him “the boy wonder”. Anthony won his first title, the prestigious Marshall Chess Club Championships, the following year, and was captain of the club’s tournament team.

Anthony became a teacher after receiving an MA degree from the College of the City of New York. He  spent then next 34 years teaching maths, primarily at the Angelo Patri Middle School in the Bronx. He began writing for the American Chess Bulletin at about the same time.  For over 30 years his outspoken opinions of fellow chess players gave him a reputation for harsh personal criticism. He was also often harsh in his criticism of the use of several popular opening moves and the players who used them. His own favourite opening move was also criticised by others. It was a great rival, Reuben Fine, who christened this move at Santasiere’s Folly, indicating his own opinion of the move. Nevertheless, Anthony was a popular chess player. No more so than in his Manhattan apartment where he hosted dinners and chess matches to many fellow players.

Anthony retired from teaching in 1961 and moved to Florida. There, in a slightly more accepting atmosphere, he made less of an effort to hide his sexuality from friends. For 15 years he lived with his younger partner, Hector. It was often a tempestuous relationship, for Hector was a compulsive cleaner and Anthony was not.

Anthony’s health as he grew older meant he had to stop playing chess, and he died following a heart attack in 1977.

There’s so much more to Anthony Santasiere’s life, as indeed there is to Ron’s and Tigran’s. For now it is only needs me to point out that chess and maths have played important parts in all of their lives.

Getting it Straight About - the Apple Logo

Its strange how quickly some urban myths and common misconceptions can spread. Unfortunately, most of them are much slower to correct. One, however, seems to have corrected itself in a relatively short time – the link between the Apple computer logo and Alan Turing.

First of all, what is the connection? The tragic end to Turing’s life was caused by his homosexuality. More accurately, it was caused by British society’s attitudes to homosexuality. After Turing was arrested and convicted for gross indecency he was given a choice – imprisonment, or organo-therapy. Turing chose the latter.

Organo-therapy involved the injection and ingestion of female hormones, notably oestrogen. Research into this treatment was basic and not extensively tested. Turing became, in effect, a guinea pig. But it was also thought that it would lead to a lessening of mental activity. Having his body altered was bad enough, but Turing also had to face the reality of a stagnation in his mental capacity.

Although Turing carried on vital research, mostly into morphogenesis (the presence of mathematical patterns in nature, of which I’ll write more about in November), he became more depressed by his treatment, both medical and personal, and decided to commit suicide.

Who knows why he chose to inject an apple with cyanide and eat it. Some have suggested he got the idea from a scene in Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves”, which he’d seen a short time beforehand. Turing was found on 8^th June, 59 years ago this morning, with the half-eaten apple near his bed.

It is no wonder that the lgbt community began to link the manner of his death to the Apple logo.

The familiar Apple logo with a bite out of it first appeared in 1977. In those days of glam rock and post 60s psychedelic design the logo was originally depicted in rainbow colours (shown here), not, as Jean-Louis Gasée (former Apple executive) said “in the wrong order”, but in the correct order starting with green at the top to emphasise the green leaf. In a world of bright logos and branding this first Apple logo became an instant hit with consumers.

But why an apple? The answer comes from the company’s first logo in 1976.

In a retro design by Ronald Wayne that looks more like a Victorian bookplate than a logo, the figure of Sir Isaac Newton is shown sitting under his apple tree, a solitary apple highlighted on a branch. Newton’s famous work on rainbows automatically inspired Rob Janoff to come up with the rainbow apple (the rainbow and Newton, an asexual and probably gay-inclined man, will be mentioned again in October – my meteorology month).

The bite from the apple logo was only introduced after it was remarked that the fruit could easily be mistaken for a tomato or cherry. So the bite (nothing to do with computer bytes) was added (or was it taken away?).

The rainbow apple logo was used up to 1997, when design had moved away from psychodelia and into simpler shapes. What could be more simpler than turning the apple into monochrome.

The urban myth of Alan Turing’s death inspiring the Apple logo, although relatively short-lived, still lingers in people’s minds. So much so, that as recently as last year an apple with a bite was used on the cover of a biography of Turing. It remains one of those ironic connections between unrelated ideas that the human mind so often makes – seeing links and patterns in things that aren’t there. Turing, with his pioneering work on morphogenesis, may well have been amused.

Perhaps Turing would be even more amused by the fact that the Chief Executive Officer of Apple, Tim Cook, is an openly gay man and one of the most influential men on the planet.

Heritage Spotlight - Bletchley Park

The work done by Alan Turing at Bletchley Park during World War II is well known. So well known, in fact, that it overshadows the work of the other code-breakers who worked there. Which is why I direct you to the website of the Bletchley Park Museum.

Turing wasn’t the only gay man at Bletchley Park. Here are three more gay code-breakers.

Noel Currer-Briggs (1919-2004)

Noel was a respected genealogist who, late in his career, turned to research into the families of the Holy Grail legend and owners of the Turin Shroud. He arrived at Bletchley Park from the Filed Ambulance Corps in late 1941. His skills in languages (he was studying for a degree in Modern Languages at Cambridge University when he was called up for war service) made him ideal to work on German ciphers. Noel worked on the Enigma ciphers briefly and then on the Nazi naval Playfair ciphers used in the lead-up to an invasion of Sicily in 1943. It was this work which helped the Allies to counter Nazi movements. For this Noel received an honour for his work he refused to consider his work of any great significance – “I was never sure why!” he once said. He left Bletchley Park with the rank of Major. After becoming a gentleman farmer he turned to genealogy and wrote many family history books and was a consultant on Debrett’s Peerage. Like many gay men of his era he married. With his wife Barbara he ran an opera festival, and he was secretary of the Three Choirs Festival. Eventually Noel left his wife after accepting his sexuality. He made a couple of television and radio appearances in the days before genealogy was really popular, usually broadcasting on royal or peerage matters. Had he lived another couple of years he would surely have entered the spotlight in the furore surrounding “The Da Vinci Code”. With his popular eccentric personality and extensive knowledge of medieval Holy Grail legend and genealogy he would have become a star.

Bentley Bridgewater (1911-1996)

This Canadian-born son of an English barrister became one of the UK’s leading museum administrators. Bentley first joined the British Museum in 1937 and was it’s Secretary from 1948. In between these years he was seconded to the Foreign Office and sent as a cryptographer to Bletchley Park in 1942. Whilst at Bletchley he was the partner of Angus Wilson (below). They had both worked at the British Museum in different departments. At Bletchley they both worked in Hut 4, the Naval Section which included the Enigma work. Bentley didn’t work on the Enigma himself but on the RHV ciphers used by Nazi ice-breakers and u-boats who didn’t carry Enigma machines. During this period Angus Wilson went through a series of emotional problems, most often violent, and Bentley was the rock on which Angus could cling to. The Wrens often called them “The Heavenly Twins”. After the war Bentley returned to the British Museum and retired in 1973.

Sir Angus Wilson (1913-1991)

The most well-known of this Bletchley trio, Angus became a successful writer and was knighted in 1980 for services to literature. It had been suggested he become a cryptographer by a colleague in the British Museum cataloguing department who had already gone there. It was Angus’s adequate skills in Italian that placed him in the Naval Section working on Italian ciphers. He later went on to work on Japanese naval ciphers (he was an expert on Japanese call-signs) and the Nazi intelligence service codes. He ended his Bletchley Park career as a Communications Intelligence Officer. Gradually, the stress of the war took its toll on Angus and his increasingly alarming tantrums at Bletchley led to him being given psychiatric therapy. After the war Angus returned to his job at the British Museum, where he began writing short stories. As more of his stories became published he became a full-time writer and left the museum in 1955. His writing career took off and he became a popular raconteur and regular television chat show guest.

There are many Bletchley Park code-breakers – some still living – who are hardly known outside Bletchley circles. This small selection is my tribute to them all.



Bletchley Park