I forwarded the below to a former editor of the College Maths. J.
She replied, "The story is pretty much true.", and attached a PDF of
an interview of M. E. Rudin published in "her" journal.
An Interview with Mary Ellen Rudin Author(s): Donald J. Albers,
Constance Reid, Mary Ellen Rudin Source: The College Mathematics
Journal, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Mar., 1988), pp. 115-137 Published by:
Mathematical Association of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/
stable/2686174 Accessed: 25/09/2009 18:10
bc found the url rather unstable.
I'll send the PDF to those not JSTOR and find the URL equally
unstable, upon request.
From: lhodges@iastate.edu
Date: 2009, September 24, 10:10:11 PDT
To: Forum for Physics Educators <phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu>
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] physics assessment
Reply-To: Forum for Physics Educators <phys-
l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu>
Apropos of this, I remember reading an article, probably in Mathematics
Magazine, about Mary Ellen Rudin (who, like her husband, was a well-
known
mathematician). She remembered showing up in some large building,
maybe a
gymnasium, to have her freshman schedule filled out at the University
of Texas,
where she was enrolling. The hall had tables with faculty members at
them to
assist students. She went to a table with a distinguished-looking
gentleman,
who spoke to her in somewhat formal terms. He never asked her what
she was
interested in or anything of the sort. Rather, she remembered, he
fired at her
a series of logical questions, along the line of "If such and such,
then what
would result..." . Based on this, he decided to place her in some
math courses,
including one that he himself taught. He was the (in)famous R. E.
(sic) Moore, who
had sized her up, correctly, as a promising mathematician and decided
he wanted
her as his student. She eventually received her Ph.D. with him and
wound up in
later years with a prominent chair at Wisconsin. The curious thing
about this
is that Moore was notoriously known for believing that women and
blacks were
incapable of being good mathematicians, and discriminating against
them, but he
apparently made an exception for Mary Ellen Rudin just on the basis
of a short
conversation with her.
Just a story I was reminded of when I came across this post. If I
don't have
all the details right, I hope I'm close.