Herbert Aaron Hauptman was born in New York City on February 14, 1917, the son of Israel Hauptman, an Austrian immigrant who worked as a printer, and Leah (Rosenfeld) Hauptman. He grew up in the Bronx and graduated from Townsend Harris High School. At the City College of New York, he majored in mathematics and received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1937. Jerome Karle, his later collaborator, also graduated from City College the same year. Hauptman went on to complete a master's degree in mathematics at Columbia University in 1939. He married Edith Citrynell, a schoolteacher, on November 10, 1940; they eventually had two daughters, Barbara and Carol. Hauptman worked for two years as a statistician in the United States Bureau of the Census before serving in the United States Army Air Force from 1942 to 1947. After his period of service ended, Hauptman went to work as a physicist and mathematician at the Naval...