7. The World Opens

Karl Gustafson ()
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Karl Gustafson: University of Colorado, Dept. of Mathematics

A chapter in The Crossing of Heaven, 2012, pp 57-101 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract It was May 17, 1972, and as we approached the first line of barbed wire separating the border of Austria from that of Hungary, the taxi driver I had hired in Vienna looked at me apprehensively and said, “I hope this works….” The Austrian border police looked at our passports and told him in German, “Good luck!” and waved us through into the no-man’s land between the countries. As I looked left and right I saw foreboding Hungarian military watch towers and machine guns pointing at us as we drove about a mile to the Hungarian side of the border. After a short discussion with the Hungarian officers, my driver looked at me apologetically and told me either we both must go back, or he can drop me here and I can hope to get a visa at the border station. I hopped out and waved him goodbye as I proceeded to the border.

Keywords: Russian Mathematician; Taxi Driver; Iron Curtain; Mongolian Gazelle; Mathematics Professor (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-642-22558-1_7

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-22558-1_7

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