Number: The Language of Science

Tobias was born in Russia, but went to France where he studied mathematics in Paris being taught there by Poincar . At this time Tobias met Anja who was at the Sorbonne at this time also studying mathematics. They married and emigrated to the United States, settling in Oregon. Tobias believed that his strong Russian accent would prevent him from obtaining jobs other than as a labourer, and at first his jobs included that of lumberjack, road builder and painter. It was into this very poor family that George was born.

Tobias and Anja chose names for their children hoping that these would influence their future careers. George was named "George Bernard" after George Bernard Shaw since his parents hoped their first child would become a writer. Similarly George's younger brother was named Henry after Henri Poincar , and he did indeed become a mathematician. Tobias was fortunate to gain the chance of reading for a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Indiana, while Anja obtained a Master's degree in French becoming a linguist at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.

The family were now living in Washington D.C., and there George attended Powell Junior High School where his progress in mathematics was, at first, rather poor. Encouraged by his father, and determined to do well in mathematics and science, he soon began to obtain top marks in mathematics. This continued at Central High School where he became fascinated by geometry. By this time he was getting strong support from three people: an outstanding mathematics teacher at the High School, a school friend who would go on to become a professor of mathematics at Berkeley, and his father. George later wrote that his father:-

... gave me thousands of geometry problems while I was still in high school. ... the mental exercise required to solve them was the great gift from my father. The solving of thousands of problems during my high school days - at the time when my brain was growing - did more than anything else to develop my analytic power.

Tobias was working on his most famous work Number: the language of science in the late 1920s and George helped him. He later wrote:-

As a teenager, I prepared some of the figures that appeared in the book.

The book was published in 1930 and when it was reprinted in the 1970s a reviewer wrote:-

Since its first appearance nearly half a century ago the book has gone through a number of printings and has deservedly maintained its popularity.

Also, Albert Einstein is quoted saying: "This (Number the Language of Science) is beyond th most interesting book on the evolution of mathematics which has ever fallen into my hands"