Alfred Tarski was born in 1901 (not 1902, as stated in the original entry). The name on his birth certificate was Alfred Teitelbaum (variant: Tajtelbaum); he changed it to Alfred Tarski in 1924. That same year his dissertation, written under the direction of Stanisław Lesńiewski, was published in two parts, the first under his birth name and the second under Alfred Tajtelbaum-Tarski; thereafter, all his articles and books were published under the name Alfred Tarski.

Tarski's immigration to the United States was somewhat accidental: He was attending a meeting of the Unity of Science at Harvard University in September 1939 when the Nazis invaded Poland and World War II began. Tarski was stranded and separated from his wife and two children, who were left behind in Warsaw (they were reunited after the war, but most of his family perished in the Holocaust). In 1942, after three years...