math department happened to observe me and
was impressed. One day I received a telegram
from him asking if I could replace a member of
the math faculty who was ill. The telegram asked
if I could start next Monday. I said yes. When I
wanted to take notes, I needed a way to write
things down. At the time people used the Taylor
Code from England for writing mathematics in
Braille. I thought that the Taylor Code used too
many grouping symbols. I had already come up
with rules to tell my readers how to read mathematics aloud to me. I began working on a Braille
code which simulated my rules for speech. For
example, when you say "x to the n power," the
phrase "to the" means "begin a superscript," and
the word "power" means "return to the baseline."
So in my Braille code I created symbols that
mean "begin superscript" and "return to the baseline." My personal code for Braille mathematics
began to evolve. I used it for my work in calculus
and statistics.
Q. Before you tell us how you came to share your
private Braille math code with the rest of us, I'd
like to know how you started taking evening math
classes at Brooklyn College.
12
A.I was always interested in math. I went to the
New York City public schools, and I spent a lot of
after-school time at the Jewish Guild for the Blind.
I had a good buddy there who was younger, and I
showed him a lot of math. When he got to high
school, he took a math placement test. The result
