Army Mathematics Research Center
During the Vietnam War, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th floors of the southern (east-west) wing of Sterling Hall housed the Army Mathematics Research Center (AMRC). This was an Army-funded think tank, directed by J. Barkley Rosser, Sr.
The staff at the center, at the time of the bombing, consisted of about 45 mathematicians, about 30 of them full-time. Rosser was well known for his research in pure mathematics, known for research in logic (Rosser's trick, the Kleene–Rosser paradox, and the Church-Rosser theorem) and in number theory (Rosser sieve). Rosser had been the head of the U.S. ballistics program during World War II and also had contributed to research on several missiles used by the U.S. military.
The money to build a home for AMRC came from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) in 1955. Their money built a 6-floor addition to Sterling Hall. In the contract to work at the facility, it was required that mathematicians spend at least half their time on U.S. Army research.
Rosser publicly minimized any military-role of the center and implied that AMRC pursued mathematics, including both pure and applied mathematics. The University of Wisconsin student newspaper, The Daily Cardinal, obtained and published quarterly reports that AMRC submitted to the Army. The Cardinal published a series of investigative articles making a convincing case that AMRC was pursuing research that was directly pursuant to specific US Department of Defense requests, and relevant to counterinsurgency operations in Vietnam. AMRC became a magnet for demonstrations, in which protesters chanted "U.S. out of Vietnam! Smash Army Math!"
The bomb missed its target of the AMRC. The truck was pulled up beside a physics laboratory on the floor below the AMRC, destroying that laboratory. One physics researcher was killed and another seriously injured. The AMRC lost only one day's work.
Read more about this topic: Sterling Hall Bombing
Famous quotes containing the words army, mathematics, research and/or center:
“It is only the enlightened ruler and the wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for the purposes of spying, and thereby they achieve great results.”
—Sun Tzu (6–5th century B.C.)
“... though mathematics may teach a man how to build a bridge, it is what the Scotch Universities call the humanities, that teach him to be civil and sweet-tempered.”
—Amelia E. Barr (1831–1919)
“One of the most important findings to come out of our research is that being where you want to be is good for you. We found a very strong correlation between preferring the role you are in and well-being. The homemaker who is at home because she likes that “job,” because it meets her own desires and needs, tends to feel good about her life. The woman at work who wants to be there also rates high in well-being.”
—Grace Baruch (20th century)
“Whenever there’s a big war coming on, you should rope off a big field. And on the big day, you should take all the kings and their cabinets and their generals, put ‘em in the center dressed in their underpants and let them fight it out with clubs. The best country wins.”
—Maxwell Anderson (1888–1959)