Max Zorn

Max August Zorn (June 6, 1906 in Krefeld, Germany – March 9, 1993 in Bloomington, Indiana, United States) was a German mathematician. He emigrated to the United States in 1933 after being forced to leave Germany. After positions at Yale and UCLA, he became a professor at IU in 1946, where he retired in 1971.

Zorn was struck by a truck on Third Street in 1992, which eventually resulted in the addition of traffic lights. The speed limit on 3rd street between Jordan and Indiana was 25 mph at the time of the accident.

16 years earlier in the late afternoon of January 23rd, 1976 he was also involved in a traffic accident at the 1300 block of east Third Street and suffered a broken leg at the time according to an HT article in December 1992.

Jimmy Wales meeting

In December 2001 (Wikipedia's first year), Jimmy Wales, creator of Wikipedia, wrote a comment on the Wikipedia talk page for Max Zorn describing how he had encountered him during Jimmy's PhD studies at Indiana University.

"I met Max Zorn once. I was taking graduate level Real Analysis as part of my PhD studies at Indiana University. Of course, I had just learned Zorn's lemma. I assumed that it was made up by someone long dead.

It was a day with dark foreboding clouds. Just as I walked into the snack machine room, there was a sudden massive downpour. I saw an elderly gentleman struggling to close the window. I went over and helped. He thanked me. We shook our heads together at the suddenness of the storm.

After he walked out, a classmate said, "Dude, that was Max Zorn, of Zorn's Lemma."

Apparently at the time, he was retired emeritus, but apparently he still came to the office from time to time.

--Jimbo Wales"

External Links

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_August_Zorn
• Article with information regarding the accident and aftermath - This is an excerpt from a Herald Times article from November 29, 1995.