@inbook{748d529ccedd4492b5722715231c16cd,
title = "Mathematical Curiosity in a Life Span: Norman Levinson (1912–1975)",
abstract = "There are numerous references in the literature to mathematics being a young person{\textquoteright}s game. In mathematical folklore many of the ground breaking results found in mathematics occur when mathematicians are relatively younger (e.g., Abel, Galois, Ramanujan etc). Barring a few exceptions, it is taken as granted that path breaking research output diminishes over a life span. This brings forth the necessity to study and understand these exceptions. If possible, to also distill the conditions under which their mathematical longevity occurred. To wit, is mathematical curiosity one of the key catalysts contributing to a mathematician{\textquoteright}s research longevity? In this chapter mathematical curiosity is discussed by constructing the case study of one notable exception: Norman Levinson (1912–1975). The notion of Contingentism is applied to discuss nuances in criteria for theorems in analysis, the need for precise calculations and sustaining curiosity as in the case of the notable exception.",
keywords = "Chandler Davis, Contingentism, Curiosity, History of analysis, Norman Levinson, Resilience, Tauberian theorems",
author = "Bharath Sriraman",
note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.",
year = "2026",
month = jan,
day = "2",
doi = "10.1007/978-3-031-99082-3\_8",
language = "English",
isbn = "978-3-031-99081-6",
series = "Research in Mathematics Education (Switzerland)",
publisher = "Springer International Publishing",
pages = "157--169",
editor = "Roza Leikin and Jinfa Cai and Alexander Karp",
booktitle = "Mathematical Curiosity",
}