Recognitions
Alt was interviewed by Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze for his history of German and Austrian mathematicians who fled from Hitler. Mathematiker auf der Flucht vor Hitler: Quellen und Studien zur Emigration einer Wissenschaft, (Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung, 1998). Expanded and translated into English as Mathematicians Fleeing from Nazi Germany: Individual Fates and Global Impact (Princeton University Press, 2009).
In 1998, Alt attended the International Congress of Mathematicians in Berlin as the guest of the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung (German Mathematical Society) in connection with its exhibition “Terror and Exile: Persecution and Expulsion of Mathematicians from Berlin between 1933-1945."
Die Oesterreichische Mathematische Gesellschaft (the Austrian Mathematical Society) invited him to attend the 2001 joint meeting in Vienna of the German and Austrian mathematical societies in conjunction with the exhibition “Vienna 1938 and the Exodus of Mathematicians.” At the opening of the exhibition, he spoke of his recollections
In May 2007, Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer conferred on Alt the “Ehrenkreuz fuer Wissenschaft und Kunst I. Klasse,” the highest distinction for science and art in Austria. In a symposium in the University Dr. Karl Sigmund, professor of mathematics of the University of Vienna, spoke of Alt’s place in the history of mathematics in Vienna between the wars. Dr. Walter Schachermayer, then of the Vienna University of Technology, spoke about Alt’s paper “On the Measurement of Utility,” presented at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Oslo in 1936, and its relation to the work of John von Neumann, Oscar Morgenstern and Kenneth Arrow, and recent developments in the notion of coherent risk measures. Newsletter, June 2007, p. 19].
While he was in Vienna in May 2007, Alt spoke to students of his old gymnasium, the Stubenbastei. The school established the Franz Alt Preis in his honor. The prize is awarded in two categories, Science and Mathematics and Human Rights and Justice, for papers written by graduating students, and has been awarded annually since 2008.
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