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I was born on the eighteenth of April 1907 in Helsingfors, Finland. My father was a professor of mechanical engineering at the Polytechnical Institute. My mother died in childbirth when I was born.

At the time of my early childhood Finland was under Russian sovereignty, but with a certain degree of autonomy, sometimes observed and sometimes disregarded by the czar who was, by today's standards, a relatively benevolent despot. Civil servants, including professors, were able to enjoy a fairly high standard of living, a condition that was to change radically during World War I and the Russian revolution that followed…

Although the theory described in the preceding papers has progressed greatly in the intervening 25 years or so since they were published and modern surveys of the field would look very different, it became apparent on reading through them that I could not possibly reflect again the novelty of the results and the excitement of their discovery that is evident in these works. They have therefore been left as they stand and I give now a short note to indicate some of the main developments…

The following sections are included:

• PREFACE

• RECIPIENTS OF FIELDS MEDALS

• CONTENTS