Richard Courant was born in Lublintz, Germany, on January 8, 1888, later becoming an American citizen. He was a mathematician, researcher and teacher, specializing in variational calculus and its applications to physics, computer science, and related fields. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Gottingen, Germany, lectured at Cambridge University and headed the mathematics department at New York University. Courant's writings include Introduction to Calculus and Analysis (1965), written with John Fritz, Differential and Integral Calculus (1965), Methods of Mathematical Physics: Dirichlet's Principle, Conformal Mapping and Minimal Surfaces (1950), and Supersonic Flow and Shock Waves… (1948). He edited a mathematics series and contributed to journals and periodicals. Courant received the Distinguished Service Award from the Mathematical Association of America in 1965. He earned the Navy Distinguished Public Service Award, the Knight-Commander's cross, and Germany's Star of the Order of Merit in 1958. Courant died on January 27, 1972.
Having grown up in a strife-ridden section of Los Angeles during the '70s, and having been a professional anti-Cold War activist/hell-raiser in the '80s, the founder and operator of a nonprofit graphics and marketing company for the charitable sector in the '90s, to the world-traveling website designer (founder of www.NuNomad.com), Richard Hamel is now enjoying the literary nodes of his creative side. He has also written "Quit Dreaming and Go!: A step-by-Step Manual on What it Takes to Travel the World and Support Yourself in the Process" and "the Nu Nomad: Location Independent Living".