author
E. B. Temple
A mathematician with a gift for storytelling, he is best remembered for making the history of mathematics vivid for general readers. He also wrote science fiction under the pen name John Taine, giving his career an unusual split between rigorous scholarship and imaginative fiction.
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About the author
Born in Scotland in 1883, he spent most of his life in the United States and built his academic career as a mathematician, eventually teaching at the California Institute of Technology. His research focused on number theory, but he became especially well known beyond mathematics for writing lively, accessible books about the subject.
His best-known popular work, Men of Mathematics, helped shape how many readers first encountered the history of the field. Even when specialists later pointed out that some stories were simplified or dramatized, the book remained influential because of its energy and sense of wonder.
He also had a second life as a novelist, publishing science fiction as John Taine. That mix of serious mathematics, historical writing, and speculative fiction gives his work a distinctive place in 20th-century literary and scientific culture.