Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl was a German mathematician, theoretical physicist and philosopher. Although much of his working life was spent in Zürich, Switzerland and then Princeton, he is associated with the University of Göttingen tradition of mathematics, represented by David Hilbert and Hermann Minkowski. His research has had major significance for theoretical physics as well as purely mathematical disciplines including number theory. He was one of the most influential mathematicians of the twentieth century, and an important member of the Institute for Advanced Study during its early years.

Peter Pesic is Tutor and Musician-in-Residence at St. John’s College, Santa Fe. He is the author of Labyrinth: A Search for the Hidden Meaning of Science; Seeing Double: Shared Identities in Physics, Philosophy, and Literature; Abel’s Proof: An Essay on the Sources and Meaning of Mathematical Unsolvability; and Sky in a Bottle, all published by the MIT Press.

This original anthology assembles eleven accessible essays by a giant of modern mathematics. Hermann Weyl (1885–1955) made lasting contributions to number theory as well as theoretical physics, and he was associated with Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, the University of Göttingen, and ETH Zurich. Spanning the 1930s–50s, these articles offer insights into logic and relativity theory in addition to reflections on the work of Weyl's mentor, David Hilbert, and his friend Emmy Noether.

Subjects include "Topology and Abstract Algebra as Two Roads of Mathematical Comprehension," "The Mathematical Way of Thinking," "Relativity Theory as a Stimulus in Mathematical Research," and "Why is the World Four-Dimensional?" Historians of mathematics, advanced undergraduates, and graduate students will appreciate these writings, many of which have been long unavailable to English-language readers.