donald J. Albers and Gerald L. alexanderson:

How do the words of mathematicians, dis- cussing their work, their careers, their lives, become known to a larger audience? There are, of course, biographies and autobiogra- phies of mathematicians going as far back as Pythagoras. There are letters galore. Some off-the-cuff remarks have been preserved (e.g., those of Lagrange). Thus, authentic words of bygone mathematicians are not dif- ficult to come by, and out of them it would be easy to construct an imaginative mock interview: