Richard Courant received worldwide recognition as one of the foremost organizers of mathematical research and teaching in the twentieth century. Most of Courant's work was in variational calculus and its applications to physics, computer science, and other fields. He contributed significantly to the resurgence of applied mathematics in the twentieth century. While the Mathematics Institute in Göttingen, Germany, and the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University stand as monuments to his organizing and fund-raising abilities, his numerous honorary degrees and awards, as well as the achievements of his students, testify to his noteworthy contributions to mathematics and other sciences.

Courant, the first of three sons, was born on January 8, 1888, in Lublinitz, a small town in Upper Silesia that was then German but later Polish. The family moved to Glatz when he was three; when he was nine they moved to the Silesian capital...